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Brain  Power 
For  Business  Men 

o<c:» 
By  Annie  Payson  Call 


THERE  can  be  no 
hope  of  progress  or 
freedom  for  the 
people  without  the  un- 
restricted and  complete 
enjoyment  of  the  right 
of  free  speech,  free  press 
and   peaceful  assembly. 


Gift  of 

IRA  B.  CROSS 


SS 


t^ 


GIFT 


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£.'-?s 


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GIFT   OF 


BRAIN    POWER   FOR 
BUSINESS  MEN 


Brain  Power 

for 

Business  Men 


By 

Annie  Payson  Call 

Author  of   "  Power   through   r^ipcse." 

"  The  Freedom  of  Life,"  '*''  Nerves 

and  Common  Seni>e,"  etc. 


Boston 

Little,   Brown,   and  Company 
igii 


Czs 


Copyright^  igii, 
By  Little,  Brown,  and  Company. 


All  rights  reserved 
Published,  May,  191 1 

GIFT 


Eiectrotyped  and  Printed  by 
THE  COLONIAL  PRESS 
C.  H .  Stmonds  dr*  Co.,  Boston.  U .  S.A 


DEDICATED   TO   THE     MEN     WHO    ARE     BEGIN- 
NING   TO    FEEL   THE    LACK    OF    POWER    IN 
THEIR     BUSINESS      LIFE,     AND      ALSO 
TO  THE  MEN  WHO  TAKE  ENOUGH 
PRIDE     IN     THIS     GOD-GIVEN 
POWER      TO       CARE      TO 
STRENGTHEN      IT. 


457948 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/brainpowerforbusOOcallrich 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I.  The  Strain  of  Business 

II.  Business  Rush  . 

III.  Business  Worries. 

IV.  Competition 
V.  Other  Men 

VI.  The   Strain  of  Debt  . 

VII.  The  Remedy 


PAGE 

I 
22 
50 
71 
82 
lOI 
I  10 


BRAIN  POWER  FOR  BUSINESS 

.MEN 

I 

THE    STRAIN    OF    BUSINESS 

In  these  days  when  the  study  and  ^ 
practice  of  economy  in  the  manage- 
ment of  business  is  making  such  head- 
way it  seems  quite  time  that  we  studied 
and  practised  the  economy  of  that 
wonderful  Hving  machine  which  is  at 
the  back  of  all  business  life  —  the 
economy  of  the  human  brain. 

The   alertness   of   a   good   business 
mind  is  delightful.     The  what-to-do- 

1 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

next  state  of  a  man's  brain  is  ever- 
refreshing  —  especially  when  ideas 
come  one  after  another  that  are  di- 
rectly constructive,  and  prove  to  be 
practically  profitable.  Does  it  not 
seem  strange  that  with  all  this  keen, 
sportsmanlike  interest  and  pleasure 
that  is  possible  in  business,  it  has  not 
occurred  to  us  more  forcibly  how 
much  wider  our  business  horizon 
might  be,  and  how  much  we  might 
increase  our  incomes  if  we  understood 
and  practised  the  habit  of  keepin^the 
brain  with  which  we  do  our  work/io-^ 


3*depras  a  good  sportsmaiTwould  in- 
sist upon  keeping  his  gun  in  order? 
We  expect  our  brains  to  do  whatever 
we  ask  of  them,  without  doing  our 
part  toward  keeping  them  in  shape, 
2 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

and  the  result  is  that  we  are  uncon- 
sciously handicapped. 

Men  seek  to  economize  power  in  all 
things  —  why  not  in  their  brains?] 
Men's  brains  are  of  first  importance, 
because  it  is  in  them  that  the  work 
begins,  and  through  them  that  the 
work  is  executed,  and  yet  how  uni- 
formly their  best  health  is  neglected. 
Take  a  smart  business  man  who  is 
"  working  on  his  nerves."  He  is  not 
going  to  stop  to  listen  to  much  preach- 
ing as  to  how^  not  to  work  on  his 
nerves.  He  is  going  on  headlong  in 
his  business  interests  and  schemes  until 
he  is  fortunate  enough  to  break  down. 
Then  he  must  stop  and  see  what  the 
trouble  is,  and,  if  he  has  the  character 
and  the  intelligence  to  do  it,  he  will 
3 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

not  only  find  out  that  the  cause  of  his 
illness  is  too  much  strain,  but  he  will 
eventually  see  that  the  too  much  strain 
has  handicapped  him  right  along.  He 
will  find  that  he  has  missed  one  good 
point  because  of  straining  for  another, 
and  if  he  has  broken  down  far  enough, 
and  for  long  enough,  he  will  wonder 
how  he  could  have  been  such  a  fool  as 
not  to  have  recognized  all  this  before. 
It  is  only  downright  common  sense 
that  will  enable  a  man  to  recognize  the 
fact  that  with  a  well-rested,  well- 
nourished  and  well-balanced  brain  he| 
can  see  more  quickly  what  to  do,  and 
can  do  it  more  effectively,  than  when 
he  is  working  with  a  brain  that  is  never 
really  rested,  that  uses  up  all  the  nour- 
ishment he  gives  it  in  strain,  and  which 
4 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

he  often  keeps  artificially  stimulated 
with  wliiskey,  and  consequently  never 
really  well  balanced. 

Why  need  a  man  break  down  to 
find  all  this  out?  Why  not  find  it  out 
before  he  breaks  down,  and  so  not 
only  protect  himself  from  such  illness 
altogether,  but  gain  more  business 
power  ? 

If  men  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
going  through  the  business  of  every 
day  with  their  feet  tied  together  and 
hand-cuffs  on.  —  if  this  had  been  the 
custom  from  generation  to  generation, 
for  years  back,  so  that  no  one  had 
known  any  other  way,  —  would  it  not 
be  a  great  surprise  and  even  a  puzzle  to 
see  a  man  trying  to  work  without  his 
hand-cuffs  and  with  his  feet  untied? 
5 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

"What?"  I  hear  a  man  exclaim, 
''  nonsense !  Am  I  not  a  free  man  in 
my  business?  The  idea  of  comparing 
me  to  a  man  working  with  his  hands 
and  feet  tied  is  absurd !  " 

So  it  would  seem  absurd  to  the  man 
with  his  hands  and  feet  tied,  to  tell  him 
that  he  could  work  better  with  them 
untied,  when  that  man  and  his  father, 
grandfather,  and  great  grandfather  be- 
fore him  had  never  dreamed  that  it  was 
possible  to  work  in  any  other  way. 
Then,  too,  if  he  consented  to  try  to 
work  with  free  hands  and  feet,  how 
stiff  they  would  be  in  the  beginning  — 
how  many  times  he  would  be  tempted 
to  put  them  back  into  shackles  because 
that  had  been  their  habit.  Most  of  us 
think  we  can  work  better  in  our  habit- 

6 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

iial  way,  even  if  that  way  is  abnormal, 
and  to  some  men  strain  is  so  habitual 
that  at  first  they  would  feel  very 
weird  without  it.  The  change  from 
an  abnormal  to  a  normal  habit  is  al- 
wavs  difficult,  but  after  it  is  accom- 
plished  we  appreciate  more  and  more 
how  much  easier  it  is  to  work  in  the 
normal  way  than  in  the  abnormal  way ; 
—  but  the  change  takes  time. 

The  shackles  that  handicap  business 
men  to-day  are  —  when  you  look  at 
them  intelligently  —  worse  than  ankle 
chains  and  hand-cuffs,  for  they  are 
shackles  of  brain  and  nerves.  A  good, 
clear,  quiet  brain  and  steady  nerves 
might  do  a  great  deal  toward  overcom- 
ing the  difficulty  of  working  with  tied 
hands  and   feet ;    but   free  hands   and 

7 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

feet  are  often  quite  helpless  with  a 
foggy  brain  and  strained  nerves  to 
guide  them. 

It  seems  reasonable  to  argue  from 
this  that  a  man  who  has  not  a  clear 
brain  and  steady  nerves  is  really  more 
handicapped  in  the  work  of  earning 
his  daily  bread  than  he  would  be  if 
his  hands  and  feet  were  tied  but  his 
brain  clear  and  his  nerves  steady. 

The  statements  I  make  with  regard 
to  business  men  have  nothing  to  do 
with  their  success  or  failure,  —  essen- 
tially. They  are  simply  to  prove  that 
the  standards  of  business  health  of 
mind  and  body  are  low,  and,  if  I  am 
able  to  prove  that  fact  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  many  business  men,  that  will 
immediately     enlist     a     strong     force 

8 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

toward  raising  these  standards.  A 
man  must  work  his  brain  first  before 
he  can  work  his  business,  and,  if  his 
mind  is  open  to  the  fact  that  his  brain 
can  be  better  oiled,  —  that  he  can  find 
more  energy  with  less  strain  in  his 
head  and  his  nerves,  —  and  that  he  can 
apply  it  all  to  the  advantage  of  himself, 
his  family,  and  his  business,  —  he  is 
not  going  to  stop  until  he  gets  this 
machine  of  his  working  according  to 
the  higher  standards  of  action  which 
have  appealed  to  his  intelligence.  It  is 
neither  success  nor  failure  which  causes 
all  this  strain  of  nerves  and  brain  in 
business  life ;  it  is  the  way  we  succeed 
or  the  way  we  fail.  There  is  a  terrible 
strain  that  comes  with  the  elation  of 
success,  which  is  quite  as  much  to  be 
9 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

feared  —  perhaps  more  —  than  the 
strain  of  depression  that  comes  with 
failure.  The  elation  of  success,  al- 
though it  seems  to  bring  delight  with 
it,  many  times  has  its  reaction  either 
in  acute  illness  of  some  kind  or  in  a 
dulling  effect  which  shuts  out  the  whole 
of  life  but  the  mighty  dollar.  Then 
again  success  may  be  to  a  man  a  tonic 
which  lifts  his  mind  out  of  depression, 
and  causes  it  to  work  normally  with 
steadiness  and  strength.  Failure  may 
also  be  a  healthy  tonic  if  taken  in  the 
right  way. 

By  dropping  strain,  a  man  may  save 
himself  from  many  a  disaster  which 
would  have  brought  with  it  the  strain 
of  failure.  Without  strain  one  can 
find  a  business  balance  which  brings 
10 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

with  it  a  steadily  enlarging  hori- 
zon. 

It  is  strain  of  brain  and  nerves  that 
principally  handicaps  the  business  man 
of  to-day,  and  this  strain  has  become 
so  habitual  and  so  a  matter  of  course 
that  often  it  is  only  when  a  man  breaks 
down  in  a  nervous  collapse  of  one  form 
or  another  that  he  notices  it ;  and  then, 
if  his  attention  can  be  taken  off  from 
himself  long  enough  for  him  to  think 
of  other  men.  he  appreciates  the  fact 
that  they  will  not  take  his  warning, 
even  as  he  knows  that  in  days  past  he 
would  not  have  taken  theirs. 

A   business    man    who    has    broken 

down  from  ner\'Ous  strain  can,  in  the 

process  of  getting  well  from  that  very 

collapse,   learn   how  to   work   without 

11 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

strain,  and  so  go  back  to  his  office  or 
his  shop,  not  only  with  renewed  health 
but  with  an  intelligent  idea  of  how  to 
work  —  how  to  take  his  failures  or  his 
successes  wholesomely  —  how  to  meet 
the  necessary  competition  of  business 
— ■  and  how  to  deal  with  other  men. 
This  normal  way  of  working  would  not 
only  relieve  him  from  strain  and  any 
possible  return  of  illness,  but,  through 
the  very  habit  of  dropping  strain  when- 
ever he  perceived  it,  he  might  come  to 
gain  more  nervous  vigor  every  day.  I 
know  this  because  I  have  seen  it  done. 
I  am  not  talking  vague  theory  but 
speak  from  a  practical  knowledge  of 
practical  fact.  Just  as  we  increase  our 
muscular  power  by  means  of  resist- 
ance; so  our  nervous  strength  grows 
12 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

through  a  wholesome  process  of  yield- 
ing. 

One  man  I  know,  who  has  come  out 
of  a  state  of  nervous  collapse  with  new 
vigor  for  work  and  a  certain  knowl- 
edge of  how  to  keep  his  vigor,  is  do- 
ing: more  work  now  than  nine-tenths 
of  the  men  alx)ut  him.  People  keep 
saying  to  him,  ''  You  will  break  down, 
you  will  break  down;"  and  again, 
"  No  man  can  work  as  you  do  and  not 
break  down,  —  it  is  impossible." 

He  knows,  however,  that  he  wnll  not 
break  down,  for  he  knows  how  to  use 
his  nervous  force  without  wasting  it. 
He  can  do  three  or  four  times  as  much 
in  one  day  as  the  men  about  him  who 
are  wasting  more  energy  than  they  use. 
Those  of  his  friends  who  are  watching 
13 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

with  anxiety  for  his  collapse  are  like  the 
men  with  their  hands  and  feet  tied, 
who  never  have  had  the  slightest  idea 
of  working  in  any  other  way.  They 
do  not  know  they  waste  their  energy. 
They  do  not  know  anything  about 
wasted  energy.  They  may  have  heard 
it  mentioned,  but  have  never  given  the 
subject  any  attention,  and  certainly 
have  never  even  thought  of  noticing 
themselves  enough  to  see  whether  they 
waste  energy  or  save  it.  Strange !  how 
some  men  will  work  and  slave  and  plan 
to  trick  other  men  and  make  a  dollar, 
and  will  not  turn  their  attention  one 
hair's-breadth  toward  truly  economical 
use  of  their  own  brains.  This  economy 
of  nervous  force  might  enable  them  to 
save  thousands  of  dollars,  and,  better 
14 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

still,  bring  them  health  of  mind  and 
body,  which  would  keep  them  quiet  and 
happy  whether  the  dollars  were  saved 
or  lost.  It  would  also  bring  them, 
through  a  better  brain  balance,  a 
healthy  power  of  perceiving  mistakes 
and  of  profiting  by  correcting  them. 

Life  is  full  of  interest  if  we  refuse 
to  go  down  with  its  failures  or  up 
with  its  successes,  but  just  go  steadily 
along,  learning  to  work  to  better  and 
better  advantage  for  ourselves  and  for 
others.  It  seems  a  pitiful  thing  to 
stop  the  way,  to  dull  our  minds,  and 
to  plunge  ourselves  into  painful  suf- 
fering, —  all  because  of  useless  strain ; 
to  work  hard  and  unhappily  in  hell, 
when  we  might  work  vigorously  and 
happily  toward  heaven. 
15 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

There  is,  as  all  men  know,  both  a 
hell  and  a  heaven  of  business  life.  Its 
hell  is  eventually  a  mess  and  a  confu- 
sion, however  well  organized  it  may 
appear  to  be  for  a  time.  Its  heaven  is 
order,  well  proportioned  organization, 
expanded  intelligence,  interest  and 
profit.  If  we  look  into  it,  it  is  clear 
to  see  that  heaven  —  to  be  heaven  — 
must  be  practical  and  not  sentimental, 
and  why  not  realize  that  the  laws  of 
heaven  belong  as  truly  and  as  practi- 
cally to  every-day  business  life  as  to 
going  to  church  on  Sunday?  Indeed, 
these  laws  belong  more  truly  and  prac- 
tically to  business  life;  for,  if  they  are 
not  applied,  then  the  going  to  church 
on  Sunday  amounts  to  nothing  what- 
ever, —  to  less  than  nothing. 
16 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

Now  the  practical  every-day  hell  of 
business  life  is  all  suninied  up  In  one 
word,    strain.       Strain    can    hold    all 
phases  of  the  selfishness  which  knocks 
down  the  other  man,  no  matter  how 
dishonestly,    in    order    to    get    ahead 
one's  self.      In  strain  we  find  all  the 
fear  of  loss  in  competition,  all  the  re- 
sistance to  the  success  of  other  men, 
and  then  the  strain  of  fear  that  other 
men  will  get  the  best  of  us  is  the  most 
intense  of  all. 

How  many  a  business  man  starts  to 
his  work  in  the  morning,  paralyzed 
with  fear  lest  some  man  or  some  cir- 
cumstances that  he  has  dreaded  should 
bring  disaster  during  the  day?  How 
many  a  business  man  wakes  in  the 
night  with  the  strain  of  just  such  fear 
17 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

upon  him,  and  fights  it  until  he  has  to 
get  up  in  the  morning,  having  had  no 
rest,  and  taking  his  strained  nerves  to 
another  fearful  day?  That  is  the  hell 
of  it !  That,  and  more  too,  which  many 
men  know  already  only  too  well. 

The  heaven  of  it  is  the  freedom 
from  such  strain  and  all  the  health  of 
mind  and  body  that  such  freedom 
brings.  It  begins  with  the  power  to^ 
drop  the  worst  strain  when  it  first  ap- 
pears. This  gives  us  a  clearer  sight  of 
the  next  best  thing  to  do.  As  we  learn 
to  drop  the  worst  and  most  obvious 
strain,  and  feel  the  good  result  of  such 
relaxation,  we  are  enabled  to  drop  the 
strain  that  is  more  subtle  and  deeper 
in.  All  this  quiets  the  brain  and  clari- 
fies the  mind.  It  brings  us  light,  and 
18 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

shows  us  what  to  do.  When  we  see 
a  process,  like  this  dropping  of  strain, 
work  practically,  it  brings  us  confi- 
dence. A  quiet  confidence  is  a  requisite 
to  the  best  business  success.  A  tense, 
conceited  confidence  often  succeeds,  but 
the  eyes  of  a  man  who  has  the  quiet 
confidence  are  keener. 

If  any  business  man  who  reads  these 
pages  will  begin  to  look  about  him 
with  a  new  interest  in  the  subject  and 
a  keen  observation,  he  will  be  surprised 
to  see  how  soon  he  will  detect  strain  in 
men  and  in  places  where  he  had  never 
before  suspected  it.  Then  let  him  profit 
by  this  new  light  by  turning  it  full  upon 
himself.  The  first  step  toward  drop- 
ping business  strain  is  to  become  thor- 
oughly and  even  painfully  conscious  of 
19 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

it.  We  do  not  keep  a  pain  very  long 
when  once  we  know  how  to  free  our- 
selves from  it,  and  business  strain  is 
worse  in  itself  and  in  its  physical  and 
mental  results  than  common  every-day 
pain,  or  indeed  than  any  one  can  know 
who  has  not  seen  and  understood 
it 

The    primary    causes    of    business  \ 
strain    which    I    hope    to    make    clear 
In  this  book  are  business  rush,  busi- ' 
ness     worry,     unhealthy     competition 
(not  at  all  healthy  competition)    and 
the  strain  of  dealing  with  other  men. 
I  put  them  in  the  line  from  the  least 
important  to  that  which  is  most  im- 
portant of  all.     Of  course  there  are 
many  other  causes,  but  none,  I  think, 
that   cannot   be   included   under   these 
20 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

four  heads;  and  I  hope  to  be  able  to 
bring  the  danger  of  such  strain  so  viv- 
idly before  my  readers  that  each  one 
may  be  inspired  to  throw  it  off. 


21 


II 

BUSINESS    RUSH 

Too  much  impetus  is  one  of  the 
most  dangerous  forms  of  business 
rush,  not  merely  in  deahng  in  stocks, 
as  when  a  man  gets  elated  by  having 
made  a  little  money  and  rushes  into 
more  buying  in  order  to  make  more 
money,  and  finally  loses  everything  he 
has;  this  is  so  well  known  a  form  of 
too  much  impetus  as  to  be  common- 
place; but  a  man  can  get  too  much 
impetus  in  the  buying  of  real  estate, 
or  in  the  buying  and  selling  of  pins 
22 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

and  needles.  He  can  get  too  much  im- 
petus in  running  a  daily  paper  and 
working  to  give  it  a  large  circulation, 
to  increase  its  advertising  power  and 
to  make  it  a  great  public  and  financial 
success ;  or  he  can  get  too  much  impe- 
tus in  running  a  dry  goods  shop.  It 
does  not  matter  what  we  are  doing  to 
earn  our  daily  bread,  —  the  strained 
habit  of  too  much  impetus  may  be 
found  in  one  form  of  business  life  as 
well  as  another,  and  always  tends  to 
knock  us  out  of  our  business  equilib- 
rium. 

Business  zeal  is  a  good  thing.  Busi- 
ness push  is  good.  Enterprise  is  good. 
A  man  cannot  make  a  success  of  his 
business  life  without  a  normal  amount 
of  all  these  three  things,  and  the  pity 
23 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

of  it  is  that  there  is  not  a  clearer  dis- 
tinction made  between  enterprise  with- 
out strain  and  enterprise  with  strain. 
When  a  man  has  just  enough  impetus 
he  can  stop  at  wih.  Not  only  that, 
but  his  mind  is  open  to  receive  the 
suggestion  to  stop  when  the  right  time 
comes,  as  well  as  the  suggestion  to 
go  ahead. 

But,  when  a  man  has  too  much  im- 
petus, he  can  not  stop.  Friends  may 
talk,  keener  business  minds  may  quietly 
suggest,  —  it  is  useless.  Having  once 
got  into  this  state  of  mind  he  is  deaf 
to  reason  and  can  only  be  brought  up 
short  by  a  disaster  to  his  business  or 
his  health. 

"  The  race  is  not  always  to  the 
swift  "  nor  is  the  most  direct  way  al- 
24 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

ways  the  better.  Two  men  are  racing 
toward  a  certain  point  of  land.  One, 
keeping  his  eye  upon  the  goal,  rushes 
directly  toward  it  regardless  of  rocks, 
brambles  and  swamps.  \Mien  he 
reaches  his  destination,  if  he  succeeds, 
there  is  nothing  left  of  him  with  which 
to  enjoy  the  prize,  and  he  finds  his 
anticipated  cup  of  joy  turned  to  worm- 
wood. The  other  man  also  keeps  his 
eye  upon  the  goal  but  he  takes  into 
account  his  environment.  With  him 
there  is  no  undue  haste ;  he  turns  to 
the  right,  to  the  left,  and  at  times  even 
seems  to  retrace  his  footsteps,  but  there 
is  always  progress ;  and,  when  he 
reaches  the  goal,  he  has  the  physical 
fitness  and  the  mental  poise  with  which 
to  enjoy  his  victory. 
25 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

The  results  are  the  same  if  we  bring 
this  race  into  the  business  world,  and 
substitute  men,  honor  and  truth  for  the 
rocks,  brambles  and  swamp.  The  man 
who  rushes  ahead  in  the  business 
world,  trampling  upon  the  well  estab- 
lished rights  of  other  men,  tearing 
honor  to  shreds,  and  trampling  truth 
into  the  mire,  will  surely  pay  the  pen- 
alty —  and  that  in  this  life  —  while  the 
man  who  chooses  his  path  with  due 
regard  for  the  rights  of  others,  who 
has  the  true  code  of  honor  and  regard 
for  truth,  —  he  will  win  the  prize,  and 
along  with  it  the  greater  power  to  en- 
joy it,  for  he  will  have  gained  quiet  and 
a  clearer  perspective  from  the  experi- 
ence of  his  journey. 

If  a  man  wants  to  know  the  inter- 
26 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

esting  wild  things  and  to  become  famil- 
iar with  their  life,  he  must  keep  quiet 
when  he  is  in  the  woods.  The  more 
quiet  he  is  in  mind  and  body,  the  nearer 
the  birds  and  the  beasts  come,  and  the 
more  he  can  see  and  understand  their 
ways  and  learn  their  habits  and  those 
of  the  trees  and  growing  things 
among  which  they  live.  So  it  is  with 
a  life  among  men;  the  more  truly 
quiet  a  man's  mind  is  the  clearer  it 
is,  and  the  more  open  it  is  to  receive 
enlightening  and  useful  business  sug- 
gestions. These  suggestions  may 
come  from  reading  or  from  other  men, 
or  they  may  arise  in  his  own  mind 
from  within  himself. 

It  may  seem  absurd  to  many  of  my 
readers  to  think  that  it  should  be  pos- 
27 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

sible  for  a  man  to  have  a  quiet  mind 
in  the  midst  of  the  habitual  business 
rush  about  him.  The  apparent  incon- 
gruity of  a  quiet  mind  in  the  stock 
exchange,  for  instance,  seems  ridic- 
ulous. The  very  fact  that  it  does 
seem  absurd  proves  the  perverted 
habit  of  mind  which  the  business  of 
to-day  has  fostered.  Every  one  will 
concede  that  with  a  quiet  mind  our 
judgment  is  clearer.  Why  is  not  this 
true  in  the  midst  of  the  excitement 
which  surrounds  us  in  business  life  as 
well  as  in  all  other  surroundings  and 
circumstances?  Please  understand  that 
by  a  quiet  mind  I  do  not  mean  a  mind 
that  works  slowly.  A  quiet  mind  can 
be  more,  much  more,  quick  and  alert 
than  a  mind  that  is  not  quiet.     To  be 

28 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

sure,  there  are  conditions  of  strain  and 
excitement  in  which  a  man's  mind 
seems  to  work  more  clearly  than  when 
it  is  at  rest,  but  these  conditions  are 
never  to  be  relied  upon.  The  excited 
mind  may  work  with  wonderful  clear- 
ness to  a  certain  extent,  but  one  can 
never  tell  when  the  snapping  point  will 
be  reached,  —  whether  it  will  hold  off 
until  the  piece  of  work  is  accomplished 
and  the  business  end  gained,  or 
whether  the  mind  will  lose  its  clear- 
ness just  at  or  before  a  crisis  which 
will  cause  failure  and  perhaps  disaster. 
The  fallacy  of  the  clear  working 
power  of  an  excited  mind  is  one  of 
the  greatest  dangers  of  a  business  man. 
A  mind  excited  from  too  much  whis- 
key is  often  wonderfully  clear  for  a 
29 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

time,  but  we  all  know  the  dulling  ef- 
fect of  habitually  clearing  up  one's 
mind  in  that  way.  Many  men  have  the 
idea  that  they  can  do  better  work  and 
drive  better  bargains  if  they  excite  their 
brains  by  drinking.  There  are  two 
reasons  against  this,  each  strong 
enough  in  itself  to  stop  a  man  from 
putting  "  an  enemy  in  his  mouth  to 
steal  away  his  brains."  The  first  is 
that  although  such  stimulants  seem  to 
clarify  at  the  time,  they  are  really  - 
steadily  dulling  the  brain  and  mud- 
dling it  for  the  future.  The  second 
is  that,  when  a  man  depends  upon 
drink,  if  he  gets  in  the  midst  of  a  hard 
business  problem  in  which  he  may  be 
dealing  with  other  men  for  several  con- 
secutive hours,  he  wears  out  the  effect 
30 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

of  his  last  drink ;  and,  when  he  comes 
to  a  crisis  and  can  not  get  away  to  get 
another  drink,  he  is  apt  to  fail  from 
lack  of  artificial  stimulants;  whereas, 
when  a  man  depends  upon  the  power 
of  his  own  brain  and  knows  how  to  use 
that  power,  a  crisis  is  just  the  time 
when  his  brain  serves  him  best. 

The  process  is  similar  with  a  mind 
which  is  kept  in  excitement  by  too 
much  impetus,  —  even  without  a  touch 
of  the  whiskey.  With  too  much  nerv- 
ous impetus  a  man  is  chronically  dry 
drunk. 

Every  man  has  his  own  personal 
atmosphere  and  can  learn  to  keep  it 
in  the  midst  of  other  atmospheres, 
That  is  one  of  the  differences  between 
the  mind  and  the  body.  A  man  cannot 
31 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

keep  his  body  warm  in  the  frigid  zone 
without  artificial  means.  He  cannot 
keep  his  body  cool  on  the  equator. 
With  the  mind  it  is  different.  A  man 
can  keep  his  mind  entirely  quiet  and 
alert  while  he  is  surrounded  by  intense 
excitement ;  he  can  keep  his  mind  clear 
while  all  men  about  him  are  in  a  hu- 
man fog.  That  is  a  gift  we  have 
which  has  become  almost  atrophied 
for  want  of  use.  Every  man  who 
appreciates  the  value  of  this  gift  must 
work  to  regain  it,  and,  having  once 
gained  it  and  experienced  its  most 
wonderful  powers,  he  will  not  feel  that 
it  is  an  exaggeration  to  say  that, 
before  this  knowledge  came  to  him,  he 
was  as  if  working  with  his  hands  and 
feet  tied. 

32 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

AMien  a  great  problem  of  business, 
involving  many  thousands  of  dollars, 
is  unexpectedly  brought  to  his  attention 
and  immediate  action  is  necessary,  he 
will  learn  that  it  is  not  losing  time  to 
take  five  or  even  ten  or  fifteen  minutes 
for  quiet  thought  in  order  to  get  a  clear 
focus  and  a  true  mental  perspective. 
The  more  habitually  quiet  the  work- 
ing of  a  man's  brain  is,  the  more  quickly 
and  truly  can  he  concentrate  on  any 
business  matter  before  him ;  and,  with 
an  habitually  well-oiled  instrument  in 
his  head,  a  man  will  solve  a  problem 
in  a  single  minute  which  might  have 
taken  hours  to  solve  if  he  had  worked 
constantly  in  a  state  of  too  much  im- 
petus. 

It  is,  in  many  cases,  the  fear  of  los- 
33 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

ing  that  exaggerates  the  impetus. 
Fear  plays  the  saddest  of  tricks  with 
us.  We  all  know  that.  Most  people 
would  gladly  work  to  be  free  from 
fear,  and  work  hard  and  steadily,  but 
do  not  know  how. 

Business  rush  is  often  fear  in  dis- 
guise. Sometimes  it  is  fear  not  dis- 
guised at  all.  If  we  drop  the  rush, 
the  fear  —  most  of  it  —  will  drop 
with  it.  We  can,  to  a  certain  extent, 
drop  the  fear  and  keep  the  rush,  but, 
then  the  rush  is  a  real  decoy  for  fear; 
and,  before  long,  we  will  surely  find 
that  fear  has  made  its  way  in,  and 
that  the  rush  has  absorbed  it  again. 
Dropping  the  sense  of  rush  seems  to 
give  us  a  clearer  point  of  vantage  for 
a  lookout;  and,  without  the  rush,  we 
34 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

are  enabled  to  detect  the  fear  before  it 
gets  too  strong  a  hold  upon  us.  With- 
out rush  and  without  fear,  life  becomes 
a  revelation  and  leads  to  happiness  and 
power  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
gain  while  handicapped  by  either. 

Let  business  have  its  natural  growth, 
—  if  it  expands  exaggeratedly,  it  gets 
almost  beyond  control.  A  man  has 
not  even  the  income  he  should  have 
because  all  the  money  he  makes  must 
**  go  back  into  the  business,"  to  keep 
it  up  to  its  own  expansion.  If  a  man 
is  contented  to  keep  his  business  within 
the  bounds  of  a  natural  and  easy  in- 
crease he  avoids  a  strain  which  is  all 
too  common  and  w^hich  is  what  might 
be  called  the  inflation  of  success.  This 
inflation  of  success  is  a  bubble  which 
35 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

is  often  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
pricked,  and  the  man  who  thinks  that 
he  is  making  a  very  large  profit  one  day 
may  find  on  the  next  day  that  he  must 
go  into  bankruptcy  with  heavy  liabili- 
ties. To  avoid  the  strain  of  rush  in  this 
direction  a  man  must  steadily  and  al- 
ways know,  to  a  figure,  the  credit  and 
debit  side  of  his  books.  Not  only 
should  he  keep  the  general  state  of  his 
business  finances  clearly  in  mind,  but  he 
should  do  that  with  a  keen  idea  of  be- 
ing ready  for  emergencies.  No  one  can 
tell  when  there  may  be  a  state  of  busi- 
ness depression  —  and  the  man  who 
has  kept  his  head  clear  by  dropping  the 
strain  of  rush,  is  the  one  who  is  quietly 
prepared  for  the  unexpected  happening. 
Another  frequent  form  of  business 
36 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

strain  comes  from  investing  in  various 
other  directions  when  one  branch  of 
business  has  made  a  great  success.  I 
know  of  a  milHonaire  who  got  his  brain 
so  muddled  by  manifold  investments 
that,  before  he  knew  it,  he  was  taking 
the  money  made  in  one  investment  to 
supply  the  money  lost  in  others,  until 
finally  he  became  comparatively  poor. 

To  keep  out  of  business  rush  —  as  in 
all  else  in  life  —  a  straight  and  narrow 
path  is  the  surest.  This  does  not  of 
course  preclude  healthy  side  invest- 
ments that  are  within  bounds. 

Carefully  thought-out  side  invest- 
ments not  only  frequently  bring  a 
financial  reward,  but  may  be  the  means 
of  putting  other  men  upon  their  feet, 
and  this,  after  all,  is  one  of  the  best  uses 
37 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

to  which  wealth  may  be  put.  The  dan- 
ger comes  when  moneyed  men  insist 
upon  having  all  the  power  of  each  in- 
vestment in  their  own  hands,  and  then 
waste  their  energy  by  dissipating  it  in 
side  issues. 

If  a  man  wants  to  learn  systematic- 
ally to  drop  his  "  rush  "  and  to  avoid 
the  danger  of  too  much  impetus,  let  him 
try  first  to  begin  his  day  quietly  in 
the  morning  and  to  end  it  quietly  at 
night.  Ending  the  day  quietly  at 
night  is  a  great  help  toward  beginning 
it  quietly  in  the  morning ;  and,  no  mat- 
ter what  state  of  excitement  a  man 
may  find  himself  in  at  night,  if  he  will 
use  his  will  decidedly  to  make  himself 
take  ten  minutes  to  settle  his  mind  be- 
fore eating  his  dinner,  and  then  again 
38 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

before  going  to  sleep,  it  will  help  him 
toward  a  much  more  quiet  business 
start  in  the  morning. 

But  in  the  morning,  again,  when  his 
brain  wants  to  start  up,  as  it  surely 
will,  with  the  old  habits  of  ''  rush,"  he 
must  be  on  the  watch  for  it  and  stop 
it  immediately.  Throughout  the  day 
he  must  be  constantly  on  the  alert  to 
drop  the  tendency  to  ''  rush  "  when  it 
appears.  For  the  first  days,  or  even 
weeks,  it  will  be  a  thousand  times  in 
one  day  that  a  man  will  have  to  volun- 
tarily drop  his  impulse  to  "  rush." 
Then  it  will  get  down  to  a  hundred,  — 
then  fifty,  and  finally  he  will  have 
gained  the  habit  of  quiet  working 
which  will  bring  good  results  every  day 
and  all  day,  and  the  temptation  to  un- 
39 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

quiet  then  will  be  like  a  temptation  to 
take  poison  to  a  healthy-minded  man. 
The  very  way  a  man  opens  his  mail 
in  the  morning  shows  his  state  of  rush, 
or  his  well-balanced,  alert  quietness  of 
mind;  the  way  in  which  he  gives 
directions  to  his  subordinates  shows 
the  confusion  of  too  much  impetus  or 
a  clear-headed,  quiet  attention  to  busi- 
ness, and  the  subordinates  feel  it.  It 
is  a  great  pity  that  so  strong  and  fine 
a  thing  as  true,  well  balanced  business 
enterprise  should  be  degraded  into  too 
much  impetus.  No  man  can  be  sure 
of  truly  seeing  the  way  his  business 
compass  points  so  long  as  he  is  work- 
ing in  a  cloud  of  dust  which  he  him- 
self raises  by  his  habit  of  business 
"  rush." 

40 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

With  freedom  from  this  strain  of 
too  much  impetus  there  comes  a 
"  power  to  organize,  to  deputize  and  to 
supervise,"  which  brings  the  dignity 
of  a  great  business  house  into  the 
foreground.  A  business  cannot  be 
thoroughly  well  organized  in  the 
midst  of  strain,  and  the  freedom  from 
strain  in  the  leading  brain  will  com- 
municate itself  to  all  w^ho  are  working 
under  it,  even  to  the  smallest  office 
boy. 

I  know  of  a  man  who  is  at  the  head 
of  a  very  large  business  house.  A  cus- 
tomer who  went  to  consult  him  wnth 
regard  to  a  grave  mistake,  which  \vas 
the  fault  of  one  of  the  great  man's 
clerks,  found  him  quietly  sitting  at  his 
desk,  which  w^as  apparently  entirely 
41 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

clear  of  business  papers,  as  if  he  had 
nothing  to  do.  The  customer  stated 
his  business,  and,  in  a  very  short  space 
of  time,  the  clerk  who  had  made  the 
mistake  was  found,  the  accident  by 
which  it  was  made  possible  for  such  a 
mistake  to  occur  was  discovered  and 
understood,  the  whole  matter  was  recti- 
fied, and  the  visitor  left  the  office  with 
a  new  sense  of  the  strength  of  quiet- 
ness in  business  life ;  for  he  knew  well 
that  his  case  was  only  one  of  many 
which  that  man  had  attended  to  during 
that  morning.  These  were  not  neces- 
sarily all  complaints,  but  matters  of  de- 
tail requiring  careful  and  individual 
attention.  He  knew  also  that  that  busi- 
ness desk  was  clear  because  all  mail  had 
been  attended  to  and  handed  to  the 
42 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

clerks  before  any  interview  had  been 
granted;  because  this  man  understood 
how  to  make  other  men  work  for  him. 
It  seems  ahiiost  as  if  every  clerk  who 
had  served  such  a  business  house  as 
that  for  a  number  of  years  would 
finally  be  educated  to  supervise  a  busi- 
ness of  his  own  with  the  same  quiet 
clearness. 

In  a  house  that  is  not  as  well  or- 
ganized, perhaps,  a  clerk  who  keeps 
himself  free  from  rush  may  silently 
suggest  better  things  to  his  employer. 
A  business  house  should  be  protected 
from  the  atmosphere  of  too  much  im- 
petus just  as  thoroughly  when  it  is 
very  small  as  when  it  is  very  large.  A 
small  grocery  store,  if  it  is  quietly  and 
truly  organized,  will  show  as  striking 

43 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

a  difference  to  the  grocery  on  the  next 
corner  which  is  doing  a  ''  rushing " 
business  without  any^  order,  as  a  large 
wholesale  dry  goods  house  compared 
to  another  which  does  not  do  its  work 
so  well.  And  in  both  cases  the  unor- 
ganized grocery  and  dry  goods  estab- 
lishment will  find  eventually  that  their 
well-ordered  neighbors  get  more  busi- 
ness. 

Begin  the  day  quietly.  End  the  day 
quietly.  Learn  how  to  relax  out  of  the 
contractions  of  "  rush  "  in  your  mus- 
cles, and  that  will  lead  you  to  erase  the 
sensation  of  *'  rush  "  in  your  nerves. 
Let  a  man  once  get  his  feet  firmly 
planted  on  the  path  of  clear-headed 
quietness  and  he  will  find  his  business 
problems  solving  themselves  so  much 
44 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

better,  that  he  will  not  cease  striving 
until  a  quiet  working  mind  has  become 
the  habit  of  his  life. 

At  first  sight  one  might  think  that, 
in  the  attempt  to  drop  the  ''  rush," 
the  mind  would  be  taken  off  the  im- 
portant question  of  the  business  itself. 
But  this  effort  to  work  quietly 
strengthens  business  concentration  — 
it  never  weakens  it. 

''  This  talk  about  no  rush  is  all  very 
well,"  cries  a  newspaper  man,  ''  but 
when  you  want  to  get  a  bit  of  news 
out  before  the  paper  next  door,  and 
you  know  the  men  next  door  are  rush- 
ing hard  to  get  ahead  of  you,  you  can't 
help  rushing." 

But  there  Is  no  reason  w^hy  you 
should  stop  '*  rushing,"  if  you  rush 
45 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

ziHthoiit  strain.  When  you  establish 
the  habit  of  hurrying  without  strain  it 
is  surprising  to  see  how  much  more 
you  can  accompHsh  and  at  an  increas- 
ingly faster  rate.  When  you  rush 
with  strain,  the  strain  will  be  sure  to 
hold  you  back  in  one  way  or  another, 
and  will  later  impede  your  progress  as 
surely  as  before  it  had  appeared  to  ac- 
celerate it.  This  is  a  fact.  The  strain 
of  "  rush  "  is  full  of  pull-backs,  and  it 
is  only  a  matter  of  time  before  it  gets 
to  be  all  pull-back  and  stops  our  way 
entirely.  I  am  sorry  there  are  not  two 
English  words  —  one  meaning  rush 
with  strain  and  one  rush  without 
strain.  —  It  is  because  of  my  respect 
for  expedition  that  I  am  an  enemy  of 
"  rush/' 

46 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

Of  course  there  have  been  many 
very  successful  business  men  —  men 
who  have  made  large  amounts  of 
money  —  who  have  done  it  all  in  a 
chronic  state  of  rush ;  but,  when  the 
business  has  not  suffered  from  this, 
the  men  have,  and  quite  as  much 
money  could  have  been  made  at  a  less 
expense  of  health  and  happiness.  The 
result  also  would  have  been  a  quiet 
mind  which  could  have  enlarged  its 
interests.  Nowadays  many  men  are  so 
immersed  in  the  rut  of  business  life  — 
for  it  may  become  a  rut  even  though  it 
is  full  of  activity,  —  that  they  lose  in- 
terest in  anything  outside.  Literature, 
art,  travel,  nature  and  out-of-doors 
mean  nothing  unless  business  is  con- 
nected with  them  in  some  form.  This 
47 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

is  one  of  the  saddest  results  of  business 
rush,  —  this  monotony  of  interest. 
Men  immersed  in  this  way  do  not 
know  how  even  to  take  a  vacation,  — 
do  not  know  how  to  drop  business  en- 
tirely and  take  to  the  woods  as  if  there 
were  no  such  thing  as  a  dollar  in  the 
world  and  never  would  be.  Nor  do 
they  have  the  ability  even  to  drop  busi- 
ness and  travel.  If  they  start  to  cross 
the  ocean  they  carry  business  with 
them  and  keep  it  with  them  until  they 
return.  If  a  man  cannot  drop  the 
rush  and  change  the  course  of  his 
mind  in  order  to  eat  a  comfortable 
meal  or  have  a  night  of  good  thorough 
sleep,  he  certainly  cannot  drop  business 
for  two  weeks  or  two  months  to  give 
his  brain  thorough  rest  and  recreation. 
48 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

A  famous  banker  is  known  to  have 
said  that  he  coiikl  do  twelve  months' 
work  in  nine  months,  but  he  could  not 
do  twelve  months'  work  in  twelve 
months.  He  might  have  added  that 
he  could  do  twelve  hours'  work  every 
day  in  seven  hours,  but  he  could  not 
do  it  in  twelve  hours.  He  appreciated 
practically  that  a  business  brain,  to 
have  its  best  power,  must  periodically 
be  steered  off  of  its  main  course,  and 
then  brought  back  again. 


49 


Ill 

BUSINESS    WORRIES 

Did  you  ever  watch  a  greedy  man 
working  to  get  something  for  himself 
when  the  greed  possessed  him  so 
strongly  that  he  could  not  restrain  it, 
and  forced  him  to  reach  for  the  thing 
he  wanted,  absolutely  regardless  of  his 
appearance  to  others?  If  you  have  a 
keen  perception  of  human  nature  and 
are  in  the  midst  of  the  business  world, 
you  may  see  such  a  man  any  day.  This 
greed  is  like  consuming  fire  when  it  has 
its  way.  It  burns  a  man's  brain  so 
50 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

that  sometimes  it  seems  to  clarify  it 
and  enable  him  to  see  how  to  get  what 
he  wants.  Later  this  apparently  clear 
light  flares  in  such  a  way  as  to  blur  his 
mind  far  more  than  it  had  enlightened 
it ;  and,  finally,  it  dies  down  and  leaves 
him  dull  and  ugly,  with  the  greed  eat- 
ing into  him. 

When  danger  of  loss  appears,  the 
fierce  pain  of  this  very  greed,  which  a 
man  does  not  feel  when  it  is  carrying 
him  on  to  gain  his  own  ends,  turns 
back  upon  hint  in  the  form  of  fear 
and  worry.  To  get  out  of  a  worry,  go 
to  the  root  of  it.  It  does  not  help  if 
I  say,  ''  This  is  all  nonsense,  —  to 
worry  about  whether  I  shall  lose  this 
money  or  not."  The  practical  help 
comes  from  actually  finding  what 
51 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

causes  the  worry,  and  uprooting  it. 
The  tendency  to  worry  is  then  getting 
weakened. 

Downright  greed  is  the  cause  of 
most  of  the  worry  in  the  business 
world.  Acute  suffering  in  the  form  of 
fear  and  worry  results  from  the  greed 
in  us  reaching  out  for  more  than  we 
need  —  particularly  if  we  do  not  get  it. 

Headaches  follow  drunkenness,  — ■ 
delirium  tremens  follows  persistent 
drunkenness.  It  is  all  just  as  certain 
a  law  as  any  rule  in  arithmetic.  If  we 
obey  the  rules  we  get  our  sums  right, 
—  if  we  do  not  follow  the  rules,  we 
get  our  sums  wrong.  We  must  learn 
the  rules  and  work  according  to  them. 

Disappointed  greed  breeds  fear,  — 
fear  breeds  worry.  That  is  also  as 
52 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

certain  as  any  rule  in  arithmetic.  Fear 
and  worry  both  are  forms  of  resistance 
to  lo&s.  Stop  resisting  loss  —  give 
up  the  greed,  and  the  result  is  no 
worry. 

There  are,  of  course,  other  forms  of 
business  worry  besides  that  aroused  by 
greed.  A  man  may  have  wife  and 
children  to  support,  and  worry  for 
fear  of  not  earning  the  money  to  feed 
them.  He  may  worry  for  fear  of  los- 
ing his  position  in  dull  times,  when  he 
sees  good  men  being  discharged,  sim- 
ply because  business  has  fallen  off. 
There  are  many  phases  of  life  in  which 
it  seems  to  be  legitimate  to  worry ;  but 
how  can  there  be  any  legitimate  cause 
of  worry,  when  worry  always  inter- 
feres with  our  gaining  the  very  thing 
53 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

we  fear  to  lose?     It  ncz'er  helps  us  to 
gain  it. 

I  know  a  business  man  who  intelli- 
gently understood  the  practical  value 
of  dropping  worries  which  interfered 
with  his  own  health  and  with  the  suc- 
cess of  his  business.  He  used  this  in- 
telligence systematically  to  learn  how 
to  drop  worries;  for,  when  the  habit 
of  worry  has  been  established  for  some 
years,  one  must  apply  one's  self  to 
steady  practice  in  learning  to  drop  it, 
just  as  one  must  go  to  work  to  learn  a 
business.  While  this  man  was  at  work 
learning  to  drop  worry  he  had  one  dis- 
aster after  another  to  "  practise  on," 
and  the  result  was  that  he  gained  a 
skill  in  freeing  himself  from  worry 
which  has  served  him  in  good  stead 
54 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

ever  since.  Temperamentally  he  was 
a  worrier  —  it  was  a  difficult  process 
for  him  to  learn  to  stop  —  and  the  dis- 
cipline of  applying  himself  to  relax  out 
of  worry  was  a  directly  constructive 
process  in  his  getting  more  power  for 
his  work. 

"  That  is  all  very  well,  but  I  cannot 
do  it,"  many  good,  sensible  men  will 
say.  *'  It  is  easy  enough  to  sit  and 
write  about  dropping  worry.  All  very 
good  theory,  but  let  any  one  come  into 
the  midst  of  the  whirl,  with  the  busi- 
ness problems  on  his  mind  that  I  have 
on  mine,  and  then  let  us  see  how 
successful  he  will  be  in  dropping 
worry." 

Another  man  will  say,  "  Let  a  man 
look  at  his  wife  and  children,  with 
55 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

the  certain  knowledge  that  in  a  few 
weeks  or  as  many  days  he  may  not 
have  the  money  to  feed  them  —  let 
him  do  that  and  then  see  how  he  feels 
about  dropping  worry." 

Other  men  may  bring  up  other  spe- 
cial forms  of  temptation  to  worry  and 
all  will  add,  "  It  is  bosh  and  nonsense 
to  talk  of  getting  rid  of  worry  —  only 
those  believe  it  to  be  possible  who  have 
nothing  real  to  worry  about." 

A  man  cannot  he  cured  of  business 
worry.  He  must  cure  himself.  He 
must  work  his  own  way  through  it  and 
out  of  it  and  work  hard.  If  he  does 
that  he  is  sure  to  find  a  foundation 
such  as  he  never  knew  before,  and  a 
sense  of  security  which  will  mean  new 
life  to  him.  Is  it  not  absurd  on  the 
56 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

face  of  it  for  any  one  to  turn  round 
and  round  in  a  swamp,  and  then  shout 
that  it  is  useless  for  a  man  out  there 
on  dry  land  to  talk  to  him  about  get- 
ting out  of  a  swamp?  And  yet  that 
is  what  men  are  constantly  doing 
when  they  refuse  to  look  with  positive 
interest  toward  findins:  their  wav  out 
of  the  habit  of  worrying.  If  we  face 
the  worry  with  a  positive  desire  to  get 
away  from  it.  that  very  attitude  of 
mind  gives  worry  a  negative  place  to 
begin  with.  Then,  holding  our  posi- 
tive desire  steadily,  we  can  work  per- 
sistently until  we  are  free.  It  is  use- 
less to  say  that  one  cannot  attend  to 
business  and  attend  to  dropping  worry 
at  the  same  time,  for  the  attention 
toward  freeing  ourselves  from  worry 
57 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

is  a  part  of  the  best  possible  attention 
to  business. 

If  a  good  part  of  our  brain  is  occu- 
pied with  worrying,  it  deprives  us  of 
just  so  much  thinking  power  with 
which  to  attend  to  business.  A  man 
could  not  reach  his  destination  as 
quickly  if  he  were  obliged  to  hop 
on  one  foot  as  if  he  walked  with  both 
feet,  —  obviously.  When  one  part  of 
the  brain  is  worrying,  the  whole  brain 
is  proportionately  lamed.  The  strain 
of  w^orry  handicaps  the  entire  man, 
too,  because  it  spreads  its  influence 
over  his  whole  brain. 

If  there  seems  to  be  danger  of  loss, 
worry  increases  that  danger.     By  wor- 
rying   we    work    directly   toward    de- 
struction.    By  dropping  the  worry  and 
58 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

turning  our  whole  attention  to  the 
next  best  thing  to  do,  we  become  at 
once  constructive  in  our  mental  action 
and  may  look  for  constructive  results. 
Time  used  in  arguing  with  another  or 
with  ourselves  is  wasted,  —  one  must 
w^ork. 

A  man  must  first  take  the  positive 
attitude  aw^ay  from  worry  to  get  out 
of  the  habit  of  it.  He  must  expect  the 
process  to  be  a  slow  one,  especially  if 
the  habit  has  been  on  him  a  long  time, 
and  must  not  allow  himself  to  be  im- 
patient because  he  does  not  gain  rap- 
idly. He  must  be  content  to  work  step 
by  step  and  must  keep  at  it.  When  he 
has  accomplished  his  freedom,  he  wnW 
find  not  only  no  more  worry,  but  a  new 
strength  of  will  which  can  be  applied 
59 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

in  all  work  before  him ;  and  more  than 
that,  he  will  find  that  he  has  gained 


in  ''  nerve. 


The  effect  of  worry  on  the  body 
is  to  contract  it.  These  physical  con- 
tractions must  be  actually  dropped 
every  time  we  perceive  them.  The 
effort  to  drop  physical  strain  in  itself 
draws  our  attention  away  from  the 
worry,  and  gives  the  brain  an  oppor- 
tunity to  spring  back  toward  the  nor- 
mal ;  and  persistent  attention  toward 
dropping  the  strain  is  directly  quieting, 
so  that  we  gain  a  clearer  atmosphere 
to  see  things  as  they  are,  and  our  best 
judgment  can  come  to  the  front  and 
serve  us. 

A  man  cannot  expect  to  be  healthy- 
minded  toward  his  business  if  the  dis- 

60 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

ease  of  worry  is  on  him,  or  the  disease 
of  unhealthy  competition.  Let  him 
turn  the  strength  of  his  attention 
toward  health,  and  nature  will  be  with 
him  all  the  way  in  driving  out  disease, 
whether  of  mind  or  body.  Health  and 
disease  cannot  occupy  the  same  place, 
and  nature's  tendency  toward  health  is 
so  strong  that,  even  when  a  man  per- 
sists in  turning  his  attention  to  disease, 
you  can  see  health  within  him  fighting 
against  odds  for  supremacy.  The  tend- 
ency of  the  human  body  and  of  the 
human  mind  toward  health  in  itself  is 
stronger  than  any  one  knows  who  has 
not  the  habit  of  looking  that  way. 
Thus  if  a  man  with  the  w^orrying 
habit,  or  the  man  with  an  acute  attack 
of  business  worry,  once  makes  up  his 
61 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

mind  to  cast  it  off,  the  knowledge  that 
nature  is  entirely  on  his  side  will 
greatly  encourage  him. 

Drop  the  physical  contractions,  pos- 
itively and  at  once  when  the  worry 
comes.  You  will  become  more  sensi- 
tive to  such  contractions  as  time  goes 
on,  and  your  ability  to  drop  them  will 
of  course  grow.  If  you  ask  how  to 
drop  the  contractions,  I  answer  that  if 
your  fist  is  closed,  you  know  how  to 
open  it ;  and  although,  if  your  fist  has 
been  clenched  for  years,  the  first  effort 
to  open  it  may  produce  a  very  slight 
result,  at  every  effort  it  will  open 
wider,  until  finally  you  can  spread 
your  fingers  wide,  and  they  will  be- 
come habitually  free  fingers.  You  can 
use  your  will  to  the  same  advantage  in 
62 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

all  contractions  of  your  body,  and  espe- 
cially in  tension  of  the  brain. 

It  takes  steady  persistence  and  time 
to  learn  the  true  control  of  our  own 
minds  and  bodies ;  —  describe  to  your- 
self the  strain  which  worry  has  made 
in  your  brain  as  so  many  little  tight 
fists  in  your  head,  all  of  which  you 
must  loosen.  It  will  give  you  a  clearer 
idea  of  those  contractions.  I  mean 
this,  of  course,  simply  for  the  sake  of 
illustration,  and  because  such  a  com- 
parison might  help  a  man  to  realize 
the  possible  control  that  his  will  could 
have  over  its  own  thinking-machine 
and  over  the  mind  which  runs  the 
machine.  Many  of  us  have  had  expe- 
rience with  the  ''  knocking  "  of  an  au- 
tomobile. A  good  chauffeur  does  not 
63 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

allow  a  ''  knock  "  to  persist  for  half  an 
hour  without  finding  the  cause  and 
eradicating  the  ''  knock."  If  so  with 
an  automobile,  why  not  with  our 
brains?  We  should  learn  to  be  our 
own  chauffeurs  and  never  allow  the 
worry  knock. 

Try  over  and  over  to  drop  the  con- 
tractions. Try  to  drop  them  in  gen- 
eral before  you  sleep  at  night,  and  that 
will  not  only  give  you  better  rest,  but 
it  will  make  you  more  sensitive  to  the 
acute  contractions  as  worry  sends  them 
up  to  the  surface  during  the  day. 

Quiet  breathing  is  the  best  physical 
Avork  for  dropping  deep-set  contrac- 
tions. There  is  a  responsive  motion  in 
a  man's  brain  to  each  breath  he  takes ; 
worry  causes  a  quick,  uneven  breath. 
64 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

Concentrating  one's  mind  on  gentle, 
easy,  rhythmic  breathing  changes  and 
quiets  the  circulation  of  the  brain,  and 
is  a  very  radical  help  toward  dropping 
nervous  strain.  Indeed,  a  man  can 
often  breathe  off  the  sensation  of 
worry  if  he  has  a  little  quiet  time  to 
himself,  —  and  having  breathed  off 
the  sensation  he  can  teach  his  brain 
the  common  sense  of  not  worrying, 
before  it  has  time  to  contract  into  the 
worry  again.  The  sensation  of  worry, 
however,  is  sure  to  return  sooner  or 
later.  Perhaps  as  you  start  to  sleep 
things  come  up  —  letters  to  be  written, 
a  telephone  message  to  be  given.  As 
each  thing  arises  in  the  mind,  drop  it. 
We  are  training  our  brains  so  that 
things  will  come  up  in  their  proper 
65 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

place,  and  in  the  time  for  sleep  we 
must  sleep  and  in  the  time  for  work 
we  must  work.  Finally,  the  brain  is 
taught  and,  when  strain  appears,  the 
lesson  which  has  been  learned  and  de- 
posited in  the  subconscious  mind  will 
immediately  be  put  into  practice,  and 
the  strain  will  be  dropped  automati- 
cally, almost  before  one  has  become 
conscious  of  it. 

A  man  can  throw  off  the  habit  of 
worrying  and  can  acquire  the  habit  of 
not  worrying,  if  he  will  turn  his  mind 
positively  to  work  for  that  purpose, 
and  persist  without  digression  until 
the  new  habit  is  established. 

I  speak,  of  course,  of  purely  mental 
worry  in  business,  not  of  worry  that  is 
caused  by  a  poor  digestion  or  by  any 
66 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

other  functional  or  organic  trouble. 
It  is  not  unusual  for  a  man  to  think  he 
is  worrying  about  his  business  when 
really  his  worry  is  only  caused  by  a 
disordered  stomach,  or  something  else 
that  is  not  right  in  the  working  of  his 
body.  Therefore  a  man  must  see  to 
it  —  when  he  starts  to  cure  himself  of 
business  worry  —  that  he  does  all  he 
can  to  keep  his  body  healthy.  On  the 
other  hand,  indigestion  is  often  caused 
by  worry,  so  that  the  rule  works  both 
ways ;  but,  in  either  case,  the  dropping 
of  contraction  is  directly  helpful. 

If  you  want  to  succeed  in  business, 
drop  worry !  To  drop  worry,  drop  the 
physical  contractions  caused  by  worry. 
That  lets  you  into  a  more  intelligent 
understanding  of  its  mental  cause, 
67 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

which  is,  of  course,  mental  resistance 
to  the  idea  of  loss.  You  cannot  say 
*'  I  am  willing  to  lose,"  because  you 
are  7iot  willing  to  lose,  and  you  are 
convinced  all  the  time  you  are  saying 
it  that  you  are  lying.  But  you  can  see 
that  resistance  to  the  idea  of  loss  clogs 
your  mind  and  stands  in  the  way  of 
your  seeing  clearly  how  best  to  go  to 
work  in  order  to  gain.  You  can  say 
to  yourself,  ''  I  will  do  the  best  I  can, 
and  I  will  not  resist  the  idea  of  fail- 
ure." When  you  have  dropped  resist- 
ance to  the  idea  of  loss,  at  first  by  a 
negative  act  of  volition,  you  will  be 
surprised  to  see  that  you  can  be  posi- 
tively willing  to  lose,  and  the  whole- 
some indifference  generated  by  your 
willingness  to  lose  will  prove  to  be  one 
68 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

of  the  very  best  means  by  which  you 
may  learn  how  to  gain. 

The  freedom  of  mind  of  a  man  who 
works  with  all  his  might  with  a  healthy 
indifference  as  to  his  success  is  the 
mental  condition  which  is  surest  to 
bring  success.  The  trouble  is  that 
men  are  afraid  to  seek  that  healthy 
indifference,  —  they  do  not  know  its 
power. 

I  knew  a  man  who  loved  his  chil- 
dren in  such  an  exaggerated  way  that 
he  was  afraid  to  stop  worrying  about 
them,  lest  something  should  happen  to 
them.  I  truly  believe  there  are  some 
men  who  are  afraid  that  if  they  do 
not  worry  about  money  they  will  not 
have  any.  In  each  step  toward  really 
finding  ourselves  out,  we  grow  more 

69 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

and  more  surprised  to  discover  how 
stupid  we  are.  In  the  eternal  fitness 
of  things,  and  in  the  last  final  analysis 
it  is  results  that  count.  Learn  hozv  to 
stop  worrying  and  get  results!  You 
can  do  it. 


70 


IV 

COMPETITION 

The  aim  of  almost  every  business 
man  seems  to  be  to  make  more  money 
than  the  other  man.  If  the  other  man 
sells  dry  goods,  he  wants  to  sell  more; 
if  the  other  man  is  very  successful  in 
making  money  out  of  a  brokerage 
business,  he  wants  to  watch  how  he 
does  it  in  order  to  get  ahead  of  him 
and  make  more.  If  the  other  man 
works  his  way  into  the  favor  of  this 
or  that  politician,  he  wants  to  work 
his  way  ahead  of  him  with  the  same 
71 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

politician,  and  with  others,  in  order 
to  get  ahead  and  get  more  business 
than  the  other  man.  If  he  sees  a  man 
trying  to  trick  him  in  business,  he  stud- 
ies hard  to  undermine  his  trick  by 
keener  tricks  of  his  own,  and,  if  he  is 
more  clever  at  tricking,  he  gets  the 
best  of  the  other  man. 

"  Set  a  thief  to  catch  a  thief  "  is 
indeed  a  true  adage ;  set  a  tricky  busi- 
ness man  to  catch  a  tricky  business 
man  is  quite  as  true  if  you  know  how 
to  do  it.  The  man  who  is  the  keenest 
at  out-tricking  other  men's  tricks  is 
the  man  who  gets  the  business  —  up 
to  a  certain  point.  After  this  certain 
point,  the  clever  man  becomes  pos- 
sessed by  fear,  especially  if  he  has  any 
little  or  big  irregularity  to  hide,  fear 
72 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

that  the  other  man  will  get  ahead  of 
him,  fear  that  the  other  man  imll  find 
him  out.  The  fact  that  the  element  of 
fear  is,  sooner  or  later,  sure  to  enter 
into  a  man  who  has  the  habit  of  work- 
ing to  out-trick  other  men  in  business 
is  strong  enough  argument  against  the 
habit  of  tricking.  There  are  little 
tricks  and  big  tricks;  there  are  the 
petty  tricks  of  one  small-minded  man 
over  another  small-minded  man;  and 
there  are  mammoth  tricks  which  enter 
into  the  making  or  losing  of  millions 
of  dollars.  Whether  in  a  little,  sneak- 
ing man  or  in  a  mean  man  who  deals 
with  large  business  enterprises,  the 
tricking  element  all  comes  from  the 
same  source.  In  the  one  case  it  is 
given  one  name,  in  the  other  case 
73 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

another,    but    it    is    all    the    same    at 
root. 

There   is    immense   brain   strain   in 
this     habit     of     tricking,  —  the     fear 
which  is  sure  to  enter  into  it  is  a  terri- 
ble strain  on  the  nervous  system  —  and 
not  only  that,  but  a  iuan  can  do  a  great 
deal  better  work  zvithout  it.   If  a  man's 
head   is   up   above  the   tricks   he   can 
detect  them  much  more  truly  and  much 
more  thoroughly  than  if  he  is  watch- 
ing for  them  in  order  to  out-trick  the 
trickster.     It  is   only  up  to  a  certain 
point  that  the  thief  is  the  best  person 
to  catch  a  thief;   when  he  is  possessed 
with  fear  that  the  other  thief  will  in 
some  way  get  the  best  of  him,  his  de- 
tective faculty  goes  and  he  loses  his 
confidence. 

74 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

Whatever  it  is  that  enables  us  to 
out-trick  another  man  will  certainly  be 
turned  against  ourselves  when  fear 
possesses  us,  —  will  eventually  play  us 
false  and  befog  us,  and  thus  wq  shall  be 
out-tricked  by  our  own  tricking  power. 
There  is  a  clear,  white  light  that  goes 
with  uprightness;  it  gives  a  man  almost 
second  sight,  and  a  good  amount  of 
practice  and  study  in  an  active  busi- 
ness world  shows  that  tricking  does 
not  pay ;  also  that  it  eventually  dulls 
the  business  mind  and  at  best  takes 
away  the  edge  of  its  keenness.  Re- 
fusing to  trick  awakens  us  more  and 
more  to  the  power  of  detecting  the 
kind  of  keenness  in  the  other  man 
which  is  sharpened  by  dishonesty.  The 
keenness  of  the  habitual  trickster  is 
75 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

false,  —  that  of  the  man  who  is  com- 
mercially upright  is  true;  the  one  has 
no  chance  against  the  other  in  the  end. 
This  is  because  of  the  white  light 
which  goes  with  business  uprightness. 
And  when  I  say  business  uprightness, 
I  do  not  mean  business  self-righteous- 
ness, —  the  contrast  between  these  is  as 
great  as  that  between  light  and  dark- 
ness. 

The  salesman  who  uses  his  powers 
of  persuasion  to  trick  another  into  buy- 
ing something  he  does  not  want,  and 
for  which  he  never  can  find  a  use,  is 
simply  adopting  a  policy  which  will 
eventually  run  him  out  of  business.  In 
the  far  West,  at  a  little  cross  roads 
store,  a  salesman  came  in  one  day  and 
persuaded  the  easily  gulled  storekeeper 
76 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

that  all   the   Range   Land   thereabouts 
would  soon  be  cut  up  into  small  farms, 
and  that  he  had  better  buy  a  carload  of 
barbed  wire,  with  which  to  fence  in  the 
farms.     The  salesman  came  away  with 
the  order,  and  a  happy  smile  on  his 
face;    but  he  was  tricked  by  his  own 
trick,  for  he  never  could  sell  that  man 
another  dollar's  worth  of  barbed  wire 
or  any  thing  else ;   and  for  years  after 
wasted  his  firm's  money  in  trying  to 
get  right  again  with  the  man  whom  he 
had  tricked.      He  had  not  taken   into 
account   that  his   trick   would  be   dis- 
covered, and  that  his  customer  could 
not  possibly  dispose  of  the  wire  in  that 
part  of  the  country  or  its  vicinity.    He 
merely  thought  he  had  made  a  clever 
sale.     Perhaps  he  would  say  that  by 
77 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

the  time  he  had  tricked  the  whole 
country  he  would  have  made  money 
enough  to  give  up  his  salesmanship, 
but  things  do  not  work  that  way. 
This  is,  of  course,  an  example  of  gross 
tricking,  but  it  serves  its  purpose  in 
bringing  forcibly  to  mind  the  stupidity 
of  all  business  tricks. 

A  business  man  needs  to  under- 
stand other  men's  minds  and  how  they 
work,  and  to  use  that  understanding 
to  better  himself,  not  in  order  to  injure 
the  other  man.  If  he  works  in  this  way 
and  gets  ahead,  —  well  and  good ;  he 
has  done  it  fairly,  and  the  other  man 
has  nothing  of  which  to  complain.  He 
has  then  been  trying  not  to  down  oth- 
ers, but  to  raise  himself.  He  has  been 
working  in  what  we  might  call  the 
78 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

spirit  of  healthy  competition,  which 
does  not  mean  strain,  but  which  does 
mean  increasing  business  insight  and 
power. 

This  is  an  important  principle  and  a 
principle  well  worth  getting  the  knack 
of  in  business ;  —  never  to  be  afraid  of 
other  iiuvis  tricks.  We  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  sure  of  keeping  clear  from 
the  fear  if  we  ourselves  indulge  in 
the  slightest  inclination  toward  trick- 


ing- 


Healthy  and  unselfish  competition  in 
business  is  a  delightful  incentive  —  it 
is  necessary  to  much  of  the  success  of 
to-day.  The  world  could  not  very  well 
get  on  without  it.  Healthy  competi- 
tion invigorates  both  mind  and  body, 
and  develops  both  business  insight  and 
79 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

ability.  It  steadily  relieves  from  strain. 
What  a  great  pity  that  its  way  should 
be  impeded  by  unhealthy  competition, 
which,  however  it  may  lead  to  success 
at  the  time,  leads  to  destruction  in  the 
end. 

Healthy  competition  is  trying  to  get 
ahead  of  the  other  man  and  at  the  same 
time  giving  him  a  fair  chance.  Un- 
healthy competition  is  trying  to  get 
ahead  by  downing  the  other  man,  so 
that  his  destruction  becomes  the  first 
aim. 

Tricky  men  often  make  money,  but 
at  the  same  time  they  are  opening 
themselves  to  fear,  and  the  fear  strains 
their  brains  so  that  their  tricking  power 
gets  less  keen  as  time  goes  on;  and 
this  increases  their  fear,  for  they  do  not 
80 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

know  when  they  may  be  caught  in  an 
emergency  and  found  out. 

Many  tricky  men  who  are  in  the 
midst  of  success  will  say,  ''  I  would 
rather  play  the  tricks  and  make  the 
money  —  I  will  risk  the  rest."  To 
such  men  there  is  no  answer.  You 
cannot  persuade  a  man  that  there  is 
a  precipice  on  one  side  of  him  if  he 
will  persist  in  looking  steadily  on  the 
other  side.  Let  him  get  out-tricked 
once,  or  found  out  once,  so  as  to  admit 
the  inevitable  fear;  then  talk  to  him 
about  the  strain  of  tricks  and  he  will 
believe  you.  Later  you  can  prove  to 
him  that  tricks  are  bad  business  policy ; 
and  perhaps  still  later  you  can  prove  to 
him  something  even  better  than  that. 


81 


V 

OTHER    MEN 

"  Other  men  "  are  more  at  the  root 
of  all  business  strain  than  any  cause 
whatever.  ''  Other  men  "  are  working 
to  make  more  money  than  I  do. 
"  Other  men  "  are  trying  to  out-trick 
me  and  gain  what  is  really  due  to  me. 
For,  whether  my  business  methods  in- 
clude tricks  or  not,  there  are  other  men 
who  believe  they  do,  and  who  try  to 
outwnt  me  in  that  kind  of  work. 
*'  Other  men "  are  trying  to  make 
goods  which  will  enable  them  to  out- 
82 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

sell  me  by  selling  cheap,  and  convin- 
cing the  buyer  that  the  goods  are  quite 
as  perfect  as  those  sold  at  a  higher  cost. 
"  Other  men  "  are  trying  to  get  me  out 
of  my  position  in  order  that  they  may 
have  a  higher  position  with  more  sal- 
ary. The  number  of  examples  that 
could  be  used  to  illustrate  the  enmity 
of  other  men  is  endless. 

''  Other  men  "  will  be  my  friends  and 
do  me  many  a  good  turn  if  I  am  in 
any  way  related  to  them,  or  if  I  happen 
to  have  hit  them  in  the  right  way. 
But  the  men  who  befriend  me  because 
they  find  that  there  is  some  personal 
reason  for  doing  so  may  be  the  very 
men  who  are  working  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  those  whom  they  do  not  con- 
sider their  friends. 
83 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

*'  Other  men  "  in  the  same  office  or 
store  or  shop  with  me  keep  me  in  a 
constant  ferment  by  their  selfish  lack 
of  consideration  for  any  one  but  them- 
selves, or  by  their  little  nasty,  dis- 
agreeable ways  which  come  from  ha- 
tred, contempt,  conceit,  or  envy. 

When  men  employ  as  clerks  men 
who  do  not  do  their  work  well,  or 
who  have  ways  that  annoy  them, 
they  have  the  privilege  of  discharg- 
ing them  and  engaging  others.  If 
an  employer  is  tyrannical,  hard,  or 
inconsiderate  of  his  employees,  the 
employees  have  no  redress.  They  can- 
not afford  to  leave  unless  a  place  with 
an  equally  good  salary  is  open  to 
them. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  an  employer 
84 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

is  annoyed  by  the  vagaries  or  eccen- 
tricities of  an  employee,  he  may  have 
to  put  up  with  them  because  he  can- 
not get  another  man  to  do  the  work  as 
well  in  all  essentials. 

I  am  putting  the  worst  elements  to 
the  front,  draw-ing  out  of  their  holes, 
so  to  speak,  all  the  demons  of  business 
life  in  order  to  face  them,  as  one  w^ould 
face  any  other  form  of  ghost  and 
prove  them  to  have  no  power  excepting 
such  power  as  we  give  them. 

The  ''  other  men  "  demons,  as  I 
have  said,  seem  to  cause  the  very 
worst  strain  in  business  life.  A  busi- 
ness man  in  seeing  that  to  be  a  fact 
and  in  thinking  it  over,  might  say 
quite  truly,  "  It  is  impossible  for  me 
to  change  other  men  and  it  is  not  my 
85 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

place  to  do  so  if  I  could,  —  and  be- 
sides there  is  no  possible  chance  that 
I  could  change  even  one  man,  and  cer- 
tainly not  the  many  who  attack  me  and 
who  attack  others  in  our  business  life." 
Of  course,  seeing  the  truth  of  that  idea 
makes  him  feel  the  strain  to  be  hope- 
less, and  that  there  is  nothing  whatever 
to  do  but  go  ahead  and  grin  and  bear  it. 
One  has  to  take  a  step  into  a  deeper 
wisdom  to  appreciate  that  the  ''  other 
man  "  problem  is  all  in  one's  self.  That 
is  an  important  point  to  learn ;  —  and, 
having  learned  it,  we  are  given  a  lot 
of  hard  work  to  do,  but  the  result  is 
that  eventually  zve  earn  our  freedom, 
and  then  the  attitude  and  behavior  of 
other  men  bring  before  us  various 
problems  which  have  to  be  solved,  and 
86 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

are  most  interesting  to  solve  in  a  hu- 
man, as  well  as  in  a  business  way. 

The  strongest  realization  of  our 
freedom  comes  in  the  ability  it  g-ives 
us  to  understand  other  men,  and  so  to 
work  intelligently  either  for,  against, 
or  with  them. 

The  first  step  to  take  in  learning 
this  freedom  is  to  find  and  face  the 
fact  that  we  are  afraid  of  some  men. 
Here,  as  in  other  business  difficulties, 
fear  is  the  strongest  factor  we  have 
to  deal  with.  Cast  off  the  fear  that  the 
*'  other  man  "  will  get  the  best  of  you, 
the  fear  that  your  employer  will  dis- 
charge you,  the  fear  that  your  em- 
ployee will  leave  you  in  the  lurch. 
Cast  off  that  fear  of  ''  other  men,"  and 
the  sense  of  freedom  will  clear  your 
87 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

mind  so  wonderfully  that  it  will  show 
you  what  to  do  in  other  cases  when 
fear  is  not  the  strongest  factor. 

A  man  cannot  cast  off  fear  purely 
from  bravado.  He  cannot  cast  it  off 
from  conceit  or  the  conviction  that  he 
can  get  the  best  of  the  other  man  any 
time.  The  fear  may  seem  to  be  out  of 
the  system,  but  it  is  not.  When  he 
comes  up  against  a  new  and  unlooked 
for  emergency  the  fear  finds  him,  and 
often  it  comes  and  hits  him  in  the  face 
with  surprising  force.  It  has  been  in 
the  background  for  so  long  a  time  and 
it  has  gained  power  through  its  con- 
cealment. 

It  is  a  fact  that  conceit,  bullying, 
envy,  and  contempt  breed  fear.  They 
breed  it  in  a  way  that  is  so  hidden  that 
88 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

a  man  never  dreams  of  the  enemy  that 
is  concealed  within  himself,  waiting  to 
rush  him  to  his  own  destruction,  until 
suddeii  and  sharp  emergencies  bring 
that  enemy  out  of  ambush.  Then  it  is 
often  too  late,  and  a  man  has  to  be 
knocked  down  and  bowled  over  before 
he  realizes  the  destructiveness  of  fear, 
and  can  pick  himself  up  and  go  to  work 
to  free  himself  from  it. 

A  man  told  me  once  that  he  had 
come  to  realize  the  destructive  power 
of  fear  to  such  an  extent  that  he  i<'as 
afraid  to  he  afraid. 

In  order  to  get  rid  of  fear,  we  must 
get  rid  of  those  things  within  us  that 
breed  fear.  A  man  may  drop  the  con- 
tractions of  fear  from  his  nerves  and 
face  the  fear  with  his  mind,  until 
89 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

he  feels  that  he  is  free  from  it ;  but 
let  contempt  or  envy  for  the  "  other 
man  "  come  and  possess  him  and  fear 
is  sure  to  follow  in  its  wake. 

It  may  seem  that  I  am  talking 
sentiment,  —  but  let  any  man  put  his 
clearest  mind  to  it  and  he  will  see  that 
I  am  talking  straight  business  facts. 

If  I  bully  my  subordinates  I  am 
afraid  of  them  or  of  some  other 
men.  If  I  am  insubordinate  or  serv- 
ile to  my  employer,  I  am  afraid  of 
him  and  of  all  who  seem  capable  of 
bringing  me  harm. 

If  I  respect  my  subordinate  as  an 
individual  and  listen  with  respect  and 
attention  to  any  questions  he  has  to 
ask,  or  suggestions  he  may  have  to 
make,  I  place  myself  beyond  the  pale 
90 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

of  fear  of  him.  Where  such  a  rela- 
tion exists,  fear  is  impossible.  If  I 
respect  my  employer's  official  position 
and  drop  all  contractions  of  fear  or 
annoyance  at  his  selfish  peculiarities, 
—  if  I  do  my  work  to  the  best  of  my 
ability,  and,  when  my  employer  criti- 
cises me  harshly,  I  ignore  the  harsh- 
ness and  just  look  to  see  if  he  is  right 
and  so  try  to  improve  my  work  ac- 
cordingly, I  am  putting  myself  out  of 
the  reach  of  his  annoying  ways.  They 
are  nothing  to  me.  All  I  want  is  to 
improve  my  work ;  then  if  he  does  not 
raise  my  salary  I  shall  hope  to  find 
those  who  will. 

If  I  find  in  myself  the  fear  of  being 
discharged,    and    so   of   being   out    of 
work  and  out  of  money,  I  must  look 
91 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

the  whole  thing  squarely  in  the  face, 
trace  it  out  to  its  possible  bitter  end, 
and  then  give  up  resistance  to  that 
same  bitter  end.  My  mind  is  then  free 
of  the  fear,  free  enough  to  see  the  best 
steps  to  take  in  order  to  make  myself 
invaluable  to  my  employer. 

Fear  is  resistance  to  the  idea  of  death 
—  of  social  death,  of  business  death,  of 
physical  death.  If  we  face  death  in 
whatever  form  we  resist  it  and  use  our 
wills  to  drop  the  resistance,  then  we  are 
out  of  the  fear.  It  is  hard  work  but  it 
can  be  done,  and  the  results  are  free- 
dom and  power. 

Have  I  made  it  clear  that  to  gain 

our  freedom  from   the  oppression  of 

"  other  men  "  zi^e  must  do  all  the  zi^ork 

in  ourselves  f    The  ''  other  men  "  have 

92 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

absolutely  nothing  to  do  zinth  it.  No 
man  nor  men  can  oppresss  me  if  I  re- 
fuse to  he  oppressed. 

The  habit  of  being  oppressed  by 
other  men  has  been  on  us  for  so 
long  that  it  means  hard  and  slow 
work  to  cast  off  that  oppression,  but, 
if  we  take  the  straight  path  we  are 
sure  to  get  the  results,  —  and  the  re- 
sults are  such  freedom  as  no  business 
man  ever  imagined  who  has  not 
worked  for  the  goal  and  reached  it. 
And  how  this  healthy  freedom  from 
fear  would  tell  in  politics !  Especially 
as  a  man  must  have  a  clear  conscience 
in  order  to  be  secure  from  fear. 

With    a    wholesome    freedom    from 
fear   there   comes   not   only   a   clearer 
mind  to  attend  to  business,  but  a  gen- 
93 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

erous  consideration  for  and  intelligent 
understanding  of  other  men.  No  one 
ever  met  a  real  loss  through  the  com- 
bination of  these  two  qualities. 

Here  is  an  anecdote  to  illustrate  this 
point :  —  A  young  man  was  appointed 
supervisor  of  several  factories  and  sev- 
eral older  men,  superintendents  of  the 
factories,  were  very  angry  at  the  ap- 
pointment. They  thought  they  had 
understood  the  work  of  the  factories 
before  this  new  supervisor  was  born. 
The  new  supervisor  heard  rumors  of 
the  antagonism,  and  knew  that  any- 
thing but  a  welcome  was  awaiting  him. 
When  the  time  came  to  visit  the  fac- 
tories, our  friend  went  to  see  the  most 
difficult  man  first,  —  the  man  who  had 
been  loudest  in  the  expression  of  his 
94 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

antagonism.  After  going  over  the 
factory  casually,  as  if  he  were  a  stran- 
ger, he  sauntered  into  the  superintend- 
ent's office  and  greeted  him  with  espe- 
cial cordiality.  He  told  him  he  had 
just  been  over  his  factory,  and  wanted 
to  congratulate  him  on  the  many  good 
things  he  had  seen  in  it.  After  talk- 
ing over  these  good  points  so  that  the 
superintendent  fully  realized  that  the 
good  points  in  his  work  were  appreci- 
ated, the  new  man  said,  *'  Since  I  have 
been  learning  something  from  you,  you 
will  not  object  to  taking  two  or  three 
hints  from  me."  "  No,  no  indeed !  " 
he  would  not  object;  hints  would  be 
very  welcome. 

They  had  a  good  business  talk  and 
the    result    was    that    the    older    man 
95 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

opened  his  mind  to  receive  all  sugges- 
tions, did  not  feel  that  he  was  inter- 
fered with  at  all,  gave  up  all  his  an- 
ticipated enmity,  grew  to  think  that 
the  new  supervisor  was  a  fine  fellow, 
and  the  two  men  became  fast  busi- 
ness friends.  The  old  superintendent 
dropped  his  strain,  and  the  new  super- 
visor never  had  any  strain  to  drop. 
He  had  done  that  work  in  himself 
before  the  new  appointment  had  been 
given  to  him. 

One  word  more  with  regard  to  the 
inventor  and  the  commercial  man. 
The  two  minds  are  entirely  opposed; 
the  inventor  wants  to  take  plenty  of 
time  and  to  do  his  work  with  the  right 
leisure;  the  commercial  man  wants  to 
make  money  and  to  make  it  at  once. 
96 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

lie  wants  to  give  the  inventor  no  time 
at  all.  The  result  is  that  the  commer- 
cial man  bullies  the  inventor  and  the 
inventor  gets  irritated  so  that  his  work 
goes  more  slowly  than  if  he  had  been 
let  respectfully  alone.  This  was  no- 
tably so  in  the  case  of  the  inventor  of 
a  wonderful  machine  now  in  daily  use. 
He  was  bullied  into  consumption,  and 
an  early  death,  by  the  men  who  were 
eager  for  their  millions  to  come  from 
this  remarkable  machine.  Xow  the 
millions  have  been  made,  but  they 
might  have  been  made  quite  as  soon, 
without  expense  of  life.  ]Most  invent- 
ors are  erratic ;  most  commercial  men 
are  grabbing.  If  the  inventor  would 
respect  the  commercial  man's  tempta- 
tion and  do  his  best,  he  could  mod- 
97 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

erate  the  greed  of  the  commercial  man. 
If  the  commercial  man  would  respect 
the  fact  that  the  inventor  has  cer- 
tain established  laws  to  obey  and  that 
he  must  work  slowly  and  exactly  in 
order  to  be  certain  of  accomplishing 
his  end,  he  would  leave  the  inventor's 
brain  free  from  annoyance  and  enable 
it  to  do  its  work  more  surely  and  more 
rapidly.  If  each  of  these  men  were 
intelligently  and  generously  consider- 
ate of  the  other,  we  might  find  many 
inventions  put  upon  the  market  with 
much  greater  ease  and  quietness,  and 
less  money  would  be  lost  through  the 
grabbing  tendency  of  the  commercial 
man,  which  in  its  strong  resistance  be- 
fuddles the  brain  of  the  inventor. 
There  is  fault  on  both  sides,  and  this 
98 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

fault  has  proved  the  destruction  of 
much  that  might  liave  been  construct- 
ive and  useful. 

Drop  resistance  and  so  cast  out  fear 
and  all  breeders  of  fear;  —  appreciate 
that  however  dishonest,  unjust  and 
annoying  other  men  may  be,  the  free- 
dom from  such  dishonesty,  injustice, 
and  annoyance  lies  entirely  with  you. 
You  can  live  in  the  same  room  with 
such  men  and  gain  entire  freedom 
from  them  by  your  own  attitude  of 
mind.  Appreciate  all  this  as  truth  and 
solid  law  to  be  obeyed,  and  you  will 
find  a  clear  business  head,  a  good  busi- 
ness perspective  and  an  interesting  and 
enlarging  scope  of  life. 

Harbor  no  fear,  harbor  no  breeder 
of  fear,  and  cultivate  a  generous  con- 
99 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

sideration  for  others.  An  understand- 
ing of  all  that  is  weak  in  human  na- 
ture, as  well  as  an  appreciation  of  all 
that  is  best  in  it,  is  the  result  of  cast- 
ing off  this  worst  strain  in  business 
life,  —  the  bondage  of  fear  or  resist- 
ance to  other  men. 


100 


1, ' 


VI 

THE    STRAIN    OF    DEBT 

Take  the  combination  of  all  other 
single  forms  of  business  strain,  bunch 
them  together,  and  even  then  you  will 
not  equal  the  torture  of  the  strain  of 
debt. 

It  might  be  safe  to  say  that  more 
than  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  business  men 
in  this  country  to-day  are  under  that 
strain.  Half  of  that  number  stand 
before  the  world  as  successful  men.  I 
know  of  a  man,  for  instance,  whose 
income  was  somewhat  over  ten  thou- 
101 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

sand  dollars  a  year.  He  got  terribly 
in  debt,  and  went  to  a  friend  to  bor- 
row. 

"  I  cannot  work  with  the  sword  of 
Damocles  hanging  over  me,  —  lend 
me  some  money  in  order  that  I  may 
pay  my  debts,"  he  said.  And  the 
man  had  plans  carefully  arranged 
to  prove  to  his  friend  how  soon 
he  could  return  the  money  bor- 
rowed. 

"  But,"  answered  the  friend,  "  why 
don't  you  pay  your  debts  in  that  way? 
If  you  propose  to  pay  me  with  such 
regularity,  why  not  do  it  all  first 
hand?" 

The  friend  bit  his  lip  and  walked 
away.  He  knew  well  that  he  was  only 
fooling  himself  and  adding  debt  to 
102 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

debt.  Indeed,  it  may  easily  have  been 
that  this  was  the  third  borrowing  and 
not  merely  the  first. 

Another  man   said,    "  I   must  have 
so   much   money   to   relieve  me   from 
worry."      He    borrowed    the    money, 
paid  his  debts  and  felt  as  if  a  load  had 
been  lifted  from  his  mind.     He  went 
about  without  his  load  of  worry  until 
the  note  for  the  money  borrowed  to 
pay  his  debts  came  due  and  there  was 
the  worry  ready  and  waiting  for  him, 
and  the  load  was  heavier  than  ever. 
He  had  borrowed  to  pay  his  debts,  had 
felt  relieved  that  his  debts  were  paid, 
had  forgotten  the  great  debt  he  had 
incurred  in  order  to  pay  his  smaller 
accumulation  of  debts.     He  had  lived 
from  the  time  he  borrowed  until  his 
103 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

note  came  due  as  if  he  had  no  debt  — 
and  there  he  was  again ! 

We  know  that  the  men  who  do  this 
could  be  counted  by  the  thousand,  and 
why  do  they  do  it? 

They  are  carrying  the  strain  of  debt 
consciously  or  unconsciously  all  the 
time.  When  they  forget  their  debts 
and  live  as  if  they  had  none,  the  strain 
is  in  there  just  the  same.  It  is  a  strain 
that,  when  it  does  not  torture  the  mind, 
dulls  the  perceptions,  and  more  often 
it  does  both. 

This  monster  of  debt  is  something 
so  really  horrible  that  the  only  reason 
why  the  octopus  is  able  to  eat  up  so 
many  men  is  that  men  refuse  to  open 
their  eyes  to  meet  him  face  to  face.  If 
a  man  once  saw  the  habit  of  debt  in  its 
104 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

true  aspect  he  would  leave  no  stone  un- 
turned until  he  was  out  of  it,  and  once 
out  of  it  he  would  no  more  incur  debt 
than  he  would  take  poison. 

Of  course  there  are  men  with  no 
moral  sense  in  the  line  of  finances ; 
these  have  plenty  of  debt  without  the 
strain.  Mora's  the  pity !  Of  these 
men  we  do  not  write.  Nevertheless 
such  men,  although  they  certainly 
liave  no  appearance  of  strain,  cannot 
help  being  dulled  by  the  habit  of  debt. 
If  they  had  little  moral  sense  to  begin 
with,  they  have  less  to  end  with. 

Obviously  the  only  remedy  for  this 
debt  strain  is  not  to  get  into  debt. 
Have  a  small  business  rather  than  a 
large  business  with  a  larger  debt. 
Live  in  an  economical,  quiet  w^ay 
105 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

rather  than  try  to  keep  up  with  your 
neighbors  and  get  deeply  into  debt. 
Live  within  your  income,  and  leave 
margin  enough  to  have  at  least  a  small 
amount  in  the  bank. 

No  amount  of  dropping  of  contrac- 
tion or  dropping  of  nervous  resistance 
is  going  to  help  a  man  out  of  the  debt 
strain  if  he  persists  in  owing  money. 
Dropping  contractions  and  dropping 
nervous  resistance  will,  however,  do 
good  work  in  helping  a  man  to  see  his 
way  to  clear  himself  from  debt,  if,  be- 
fore that,  his  will  is  positively  insist- 
ent upon  clearing  himself.  The  habit 
of  debt  pins  a  man  down  so  strongly 
that  it  takes  immense  effort  of  the 
will  to  disentangle  himself  —  not  only 
one  immense  effort,  but  persistent  and 
106 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

continued  effort,  —  and,  if  he  keeps  his 
aim  steady  and  works  his  way  through 
when  he  finds  himself  financially  unin- 
volved,  he  will  have  a  sense  of  relief 
which  will  bring  him  a  realization  of 
the  horror  of  the  strain  he  carried 
while  allowing  himself  to  stay  in 
debt. 

A  man  can  get  so  involved  in  the 
habit  of  debt  that  to  extricate  himself 
will  seem  an  impossibility,  unless  he 
takes  the  bread  from  the  mouth  of  his 
wife  and  family.  Let  such  a  man 
begin  by  paying  one  dollar  a  week, 
or  even  one  dollar  a  month,  to  other 
men  who  are  his  creditors.  Let  him 
not  be  ashamed  to  send  that  dollar, 
even  if  it  is  one  one-hundredth  or  one 
one-thousandth  part  of  the  debt  he 
107 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

owes  to  that  man.  The  very  fact  of 
having  changed  his  aim  and  become 
persistent  in  his  effort  to  get  out  of 
debt  will  lift  the  strain  enough  to  give 
him  a  clearer  mind.  And  it  even 
seems  to  open  the  way  for  him  to 
make  more  money  —  to  enable  him  to 
pay  two  or  three  dollars  at  a  time 
instead  of  one.  There  must  be  some 
psychical  law  in  it  that  we  do  not 
know  —  or  perhaps  some  of  us  do 
know  it  —  for  over  and  over  the  man 
who  gets  into  debt  once  gets  deeper 
in  and  loses  money;  the  man  who  is 
keeping  himself  out  of  debt  finds  the 
way  to  a  wider  and  wider  margin  of 
income,  while  at  the  same  time  spend- 
ing all  he  needs  for  bread  and  butter 
and  oftentimes  for  cake  and  pie.  To 
108 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

the  man  who  has  the  habit  of  debt 
abysses  of  loss  seem  always  to  open. 

The  only  way  to  prevent  the  strain 
of  debt  is  to  stop  the  debt  at  once  and 
entirely  if  you  can;  if  not,  then  stop 
it  with  persistent,  steady  effort  a  little 
at  a  time. 

There  are  debts  incurred  in  a  very 
large  way,  and  in  a  very  small  way. 
There  are  many  times  when  debts  may 
be  for  a  certain  period  necessary  to 
start  a  business  ;  —  a  risk  may  be  some- 
times healthy  —  but  that  is  the  excep- 
tion to  be  judged  according  to  individ- 
ual conditions.  \\'ith  large  debts  and 
with  small  debts  in  general,  the  prin- 
ciple is  the  same :  drop  the  strain  and 
don't  incur  debt. 

109 


VII 

THE   REMEDY 

/   Drop      strain.        Drop      resistance. 

I  Cultivate  a  wholesome  indifference. 
These  things,  I  know,  seem  easy  to  say, 
but  the  question  with  every  reader  will 
be,  how  to  do  it.  There  are  very  few 
men  who  have  not  the  conviction 
that  they  would  be  glad  to  drop  rush 
and  worry  if  they  could,  but  they  do 
not  know  how.  They  would  be  glad 
to  be  free  from  the  fear  of  other  men 
if  they  could,  and  it  is  all  very  well  to 
be  advised  to  become  independent,  but 
110 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

the  question  is  how  to  get  there.  Of 
course  every  man  must  find  his  own 
path  to  freedom,  and  no  man's  path  is 
just  the  same  as  any  other  man's,  but 
there  is  one  general  road  for  all  of  us, 
which  we  might  say,  leads  each  one  to 
his  own  individual  path,  and  that  gen- 
eral road  we  all  must  take.  In  so  far 
as  I  can,  I  should  like  to  point  out  the 
beginnings  of  that  road  to  my  readers 
—  and  when  a  man  has  once  begun  to 
firmly  tread  it  and  lifts  his  head  to 
look  even  a  little  way  beyond,  he  does 
not  stop,  but  keeps  steadily  along  un- 
til he  turns  into  his  own  particular 
path. 

(--  The  first  necessity  is  to   rouse  the 
imagination  enough  to  get  a  mental  pic- 
ture of  what  one's  life  might  be  when 
111 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

free  from  rush  and  worry  and  bondage 
to  other  men. 

A  man  can  sit  down  quietly  for  an 
hour  or  so  on  a  Sunday  and  think  that 
out.  If  he  has  to  use  several  hours, 
for  several  consecutive  Sundays,  in 
order  to  get  his  imagination  whole- 
somely stirred  up,  he  will  find  it  worth 
while.  A  good,  clear  picture  of  what 
life  might  be  without  rush,  or 
worry,  or  human  bondage,  will  make  a 
man  more  sensitive  to  his  own  habit  of 
rush  and  worry,  and  fear  of  other 
men.  Then  the  question  is  how  to  be 
rid  of  these  burdens  that  are  dragging 
us  back  while  we,  in  the  best  of  our 
hearts  and  minds,  would  be  going  for- 
w^ard.  These  burdens  that  so  many 
thousand  times  are  really  holding  us 
112 


Brain  rower  for  Business  Men 

away  from  success,  by  interfering  with 
tlie  clear  working  of  our  minds,  clog- 
ging our  business  intelligence,  and 
making  our  judgment  of  business 
situations  and  of  other  men  all  uncer- 
tain, because  biassed  by  our  own 
personal  prejudices  and  want  of  quiet 
clearness  of  mind. 

In  order  to  be  free  from  these  habits  ^ 
of    rush    and    worry    and    fear,    we 
must  get  a   strong  and  positive  con- 
viction that  they  are  obstructions  in  our 
path,  and  the  more  we  appreciate  how 
great      obstructions     they     are,      the    \ 
stronger  will  be  our  conviction  that  to    \ 
get  them  out  of  the  way  is  an  absolute     I 
necessity.  -^^^^ 

If  we  have  once  become  established 
in  our  conviction,  the  study  and  prac- 
113 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

tice  of  the  process  of  throwing  off  such 
pernicious  habits  is  very  direct,  and 
even  simple,  but  without  this  strong 
conviction  with  which  to  start,  we  can 
accompHsh  nothing  whatever.  I  heard 
some  one  speak  once  of  trying  to  relax 
out  of  anger,  and  he  said  ''  the  more  I 
relaxed  the  more  angry  I  got."  "  Did 
you  really  want  to  get  over  the  an- 
ger? "  I  inquired.  "  Well  no,"  he  an- 
swered, "  I  did  not."  That  is  just  the 
trouble.  If  a  man  has  something 
better  in  the  back  of  his  brain 
than  he  is  using  every  day,  as  soon 
as  he  drops  the  tension,  it  gives 
the  better  tendencies  an  opportunity 
to  come  forward  and  assert  them- 
selves. If  he  has  nothing  better  in 
the  back  of  his  brain  than  what  he  is 
114 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

acting  upon  from  his  own  personal  ten- 
sion, when  he  drops  his  tension  it  only 
opens  the  way  for  that  which  is  worse 
to  find  more  of  a  vent  and  so  increase 
the  strain  of  rush,  worry,  and  bond- 
age to  other  men.  That  is  why  I 
say  take  an  hour  or  more  every  Sunday 
and  think  it  out.  Get  as  vivid  a  sense 
as  you  find  it  possible  to  do,  of  what 
life  might  be  without  rush,  and  worry, 
and  fear  of  men.  Stack  up  the  back  of 
your  brain  with  a  good  clear  apprecia- 
tion of  what  it  might  mean  to  you  if 
you  made  all  circumstances  of  life  op- 
portunities, and  allowed  no  circum- 
stance to  be  in  itself  a  limitation.  Try 
to  see  and  understand  not  only  what  it 
would  save  you  as  a  man  if  you  gained 
such  habitual  freedom,  but  understand 
115 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

also  the  health  it  would  bring  to  your 
brain  and  nervous  system.  It  takes 
very  little  thought  to  see  how  the  strain 
of  rush,  and  worry,  and  the  fear  of 
other  men  must  drain  a  brain,  and  in- 
terfere with  its  best  strength.  If  you 
get  this  conviction  there  will  come 
with  it  a  stronger  and  more  positive 
desire  to  w^ork  for  your  freedom. 
Having  a  fair  start  from  the  center, 
you  can  begin  work  on  the  circumfer- 
ence, never  once  losing  your  central 
aim.  We  begin  by  learning  to  drop 
the  physical  contraction  which  the 
''  rush "  and  worry,  and  fear,  have 
made.  Before  sleeping  at  night,  and 
at  odd  moments  through  the  day,  or  I 
might  say  even  at  odd  seconds  through  I 
the  day  you  should  aim  to  drop  strain  / 
116 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

in  your  arms,  your  legs,  your  spine, 
the  back  of  your  neck,  and  to  regulate 
your  breathing  so  that  it  is  quiet  and 
rliythmic,  gentle  and  firm.     Take  half 
an  hour  at  night  flat  on  the  floor  and 
settle,  dragging  your  heels  up  so  that 
your  knees  bend,  and  letting  your  legs 
slip  heavily  down,   raising  your  arms 
from  the  shoulders  and  dropping  them, 
rolling  over  heavily  and  letting  gravity 
have    its    way    with    you.       \\^orking 
quietly  for  half  an  hour  or  so  every 
night  will  give  you  a  better  standard 
of  what  it  is  to  be  without  contractions 
and  if  you  keep  up  the  habit  of  the  half 
hour's  practice  your  standard  of  phys- 
ical ease  and  freedom  will  get  steadily 
higher,  thus  when  you  catch  yourself 
in  physical  contraction  during  the  day, 
117 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

you  can  relax  more  surely,  because  you 
have  the  standard  gained  by  your  reg- 
ular practice  to  refer  to  immediately. 

The  physical  contractions  are  caused 
by  resistance  or  fear  in  the  mind.  If 
you  have  in  the  back  of  your  brain  a 
clear  appreciation  of  the  uselessness  of 
such  resistances,  and  not  only  that  but 
if  you  understand  the  positive  harm 
which  they  do  by  interfering  with  the 
clear  working  of  your  mind,  and  drain- 
ing your  brain  and  nervous  system  of 
strength,  and  if  at  the  same  time  you 
have  learned  to  drop  the  physical  con- 
traction which  they  have  caused,  does 
it  not  then  seem  to  be  a  comparatively 
simple  matter  to  use  your  will  posi- 
tively to  drop  the  resistances  them- 
selves? Even  to  insist  that  you  are 
118 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

willing  to  fail,  and  that  you  are  willing 
to  have  the  other  mart  get  ahead  of  you. 

To  be  perfectly  free  and  independent 
in  our  minds  as  to  results,  and  yet  to 
work  as  if  the  best  results  and  the  best 
gain  to  our  own  pockets  was  the  only 
thing  in  the  world  we  cared  for,  is  an 
attitude  which  any  thinking  man  can 
recognize  as  meaning  power.  To  drop 
resistance  enough  to  gain  this  power 
cannot  be  accomplished  immediately; 
it  is  only  gained  by  a  process  which  we 
must  follow  step  after  step,  by  steady 
work  in  the  use  of  our  wills  day  after 
day.     There  are  no  short  cuts. 

Just  as  we  need  our  daily  half  hour 

to  get  the  habit  of  freeing  ourselves 

from  physical  contractions,  just  as  we 

need  not  only  the  daily  half  hour,  but 

119 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

the  steady  watchfulness  throughout 
business  hours  to  drop  the  tension  of 
body  the  moment  we  notice  it,  so  we 
must  use  our  wills  over  and  over,  day 
after  day,  opportunity  after  opportu- 
nity to  drop  resistances.  We  must  talk 
to  our  brain  as  we  would  talk  to  a  way- 
ward child,  quietly,  without  emotion, 
and  convince  ourselves  that  these  re- 
sistances to  circumstances  and  to  men 
are  only  harming  us ;  they  are  steadily 
poisonous  in  their  effects,  and  to  do  our 
best  work  we  must  get  them  out  of  our 
systems.  They  will  rise  in  us  a  thou- 
sand times,  a  thousand  times  a  thou- 
sand times;  just  as  often  in  detail  we 
must  drop,  drop  them.  Having  learned 
to  drop  the  physical  contractions  will  of 
course  greatly  aid  us.     Finally  we  will 

120 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

have  chang-ed  the  habit  of  our  brains  so 
that  tlie  very  fact  of  resistances  rising 
up  in  us  will  bring  at  once  an  impera- 
tive order  for  its  dismissal.  An  order, 
that  because  of  long  and  persistent 
training,  will  be  at  once  obeyed.  It 
takes  time,  but  it  is  an  entirely  sensible 
process,  and  it  can  be  done.  It  has 
been  done,  and  the  process  now  ought 
to  be  going  on  in  every  one  of  us  as  a 
matter  of  course.  The  laws  of  nature 
and  the  laws  of  spirit  are  all  with  us, 
it  is  only  the  perverseness  of  our  own 
narrow  and  stupid  self-interest  that  is 
against  us. 

Narrow   and    stupid   self-interest   is 
the  most  difficult  thine  of  all  to  deal 


'fe 


with.     That  will  not  allow  us  to  give 

up  our  own  way  in  order  to  get  that 

121 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

way  or  even  a  better.  This  most  im- 
portant phase  of  the  whole  work,  — 
the  appreciation  of  the  weakness  of 
self-interest  —  is  the  most  difficult  to 
deal  with  and  must  be  left  almost  en- 
tirely to  each  man  to  discover  for  him- 
self, —  so  often  self-interest  appears  to 
be  the  only  thing  in  the  world ! 

"If  a  man  does  not  work  for  his 
own  self-interest,  what  should  he  work 
for?" 

This  is  a  question  on  the  end  of  the 
tongue  of  almost  every  man  who  lives. 
Take  away  self-interest  and  you  take 
all  the  starch  out  of  the  lives  of  many 
men, — they  are  limp  and  useless.  This 
being  the  fact,  how  difficult  it  is  to 
lead  another  to  the  truth  that  self-in- 
terest is  really  an  obstruction,  even 
122 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

thoug-h  it  may  appear  so  often  to  be 
the  means  of  success.  But  suppose  we 
begin  by  caring  more  for  the  success  of 
our  business,  upon  soHd  business  prin- 
ciples, than  we  do  for  our  own  personal 
success  in  the  business  —  then  we  shall 
find  our  interest  in  the  strength  of  true 
business  principles  a  positive  working 
force  with  us,  and  our  own  selfish  de- 
sires for  an  increase  of  income  will  sink 
into  a  secondary  place.  As  a  result  of 
this  change  of  aim  it  is  not  an  uncom- 
mon experience  that  a  man,  as  he  sees 
his  love  for  the  most  upright  business 
principles  grow,  may  at  the  same  time 
find  his  income  increase.  It  might  well 
be  so  every  time,  for  it  is  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  best  working  of  true 
principles  brings  the  best  results.  Let 
123 


Brain  Power  for  Business  Men 

a  business  man  v/ork  with  a  steady  aim 
to  drop  the  physical  contractions  caused 
by  strain,  and  to  use  his  will  intelli- 
gently and  persistently  to  drop  the  re- 
sistances which  cause  the  strain  —  let 
him  find  and  enjoy  his  gain  in  business 
insight,  and  the  increase  of  power  that 
is  sure  to  follow  the  freedom  from  such 
contractions,  and  eventually  he  will  be 
led  to  that  deeper  wisdom  wherein  lies 
the  root  of  all  individual  character. 

The  whole  question  is  vital,  —  as 
vital  for  one  phase  of  life  as  another. 
It  is  the  foundation  secret  of  life  it- 
self, and  at  the  root  of  it  lie  all  the 
principles  of  unselfishness  and  a  proper 
respect  for  the  interests  of  others. 


124 


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